H.—2l.

part of Lambert's testimony is against himself on account of his repeated contradictions of himself on the most material points of the story. Of course it would not be fair to insist too much upon minor discrepancies in evidence after a lapse of seven or eight years, and still less after _an interval of eighteen and a half years; and I have no doubt that my friend's witnesses will need just as much charity on that ground as my own. My friend has made a suggestion as to how he is going to put his evidence. Dr. Findlay: I was suggesting to my friend that it would help us both if, instead of taking witnesses over the evidence given nineteen years ago, and asking them to recall again in the ordinary way what happened, that the)- should be asked before they go into the box to read the evidence they gave in 1887, and, if necessary, again in 1895, and that they should be asked whether that'evidence is true. My friend may ask any further questions he has to put, and leave the rest for cross-examination. It would, I think, be unnecessary to ask the witnesses to repeat the evidence given many years ago, because many of them must in a large measure trust to the record of the evidence they have given previously. Mr. Justice Edwards: Whatever counsel may agree to in that respect the Court will follow. Mr. Atkinson: I shall consider the suggestion, and will discuss the question again. Lambert's memory and Meikle's must be alike faulty in some respects; but I do submit with regard to both Lambert and Meikle that there must be some prominent features of this crime—if it was a crime— impressed upon their minds, if they are speaking the truth. Notwithstanding this, your Honours, many essential features of the case*change in Lambert's story, and the change—l do not complain as to some after the lapse of eighteen years —but they change within a month, and I will put before your Honours the chicf —the most radical —contradictions. Now, of course, the shifting of the date was practically Lambert's defence—the question that it was not the Nth; that if he had seen sheep driven in the manner described, that it was not on the Nth, but about that date. I will ask your Honours to look at various points bearing on the chronology, which is exceedingly simple from the standpoint of Meikle and his witnesses. Harvey I have already accounted for as rejected by the Judge generally; and as I submit, and as I conceive, if I may say with perfect justice on questions of chronology. But Lambert is his own chronologist at the original trial. He had one corroborative witness —Gregg—but Dr. Findlay: He was not at Lambert's trial. Every effort was made, I think my friend will agree with me; to find him. If he could have been found he would have been produced. Mr. Atkinson: My client was hunting for him also, but he was out of the country before Lambert was tried. Every effort was apparently made by both parties to find him. However, as I shall put it to your Honours, Gregg has become an important corroborative witness of my client's chronology by the time Lambert has come to his trial, and has had to vary from his original story in the matter of date. Take the different statements made by Lambert with regard to this date. First of all, in the original depositions taken in 1887 (beginning of page 2), he says "about the Nth October" he saw young Meikle driving sheep. Then, in cross-examination, he says, "I remember the Nth—l made a note of it." He says, "I remember it by McGeorge going away." Of course this is a far better criterion in the case of any witness, except a professional man who is keeping a regular record, than the calendar. So that it was definitely fixed by Lambert as the night of McGeorge's departure. Gregg, who alone was brought to corroborate Lambert, heard a voice he thought to be Arthur Meikle's, and remembers that the occasion was also fixed with reference to McGeorge. He refers to it, I think, as the Nth. In Gregg's evidence (page 21), he says,— " I know Lambert. Saw him at my place on Nth October, about 9 p.m. Cross-examined: I was asking Lambert about McGeorge going away that night." So that it is fixed by the only two witnesses who could speak—one directly to the crime, and one in faint corroboration, and suggested circumstances that might be taken as corroboration. The two agreed as to the 17th, and the night of McGeorge's departure. We have had from the witnesses I have already referred to—McGeorge, Waddell, and that string of witnesses—that McGeorge knew he left on a Monday, and Waddell came and fixed the Nth October as the date. McGeorge met Barclay on the day he left the station—the day Barclay went to work for Waddell, which was fixed as the Nth October —so that the connection is altogether perfect as to the date of McGeorge's departure. It is absolutely fixed, and there is no getting away from it. Then it was.fixed on Lambert's trial that it was the Nth October —the day of McGeorge's departure. Lambert was perfectly definite, and the Nth was the day selected on the indictment. He appears to have been definite when it was a case of convicting another man, and only indefinite when it was necessary to save himself. The second of his statements was made in 1894, before Mr. Rawson, and will be found on the depositions. There he says, " About the date McGeorge left the hut," so that immediately there is a difference there between the date of McGeorge's departure and the date that Lambert was at Gregg'.s—a difference between two points, the coincidence of which establishes conclusively for Meikle's prosecution the date of the theft. Dr. Fin ill <ni: Will my friend permit me to correct a somewhat important statement you have gpt" Tn the 'cross-examination of Lambert at the Meikle trial before the Supreme Court" he was asked in cross-examination about the'driving of those sheep, and in the printed copy (page 20) you will see "that was"only night," whereas the words on the Judge's notes were, "that was any night." Mr. Justice Cooper: We had better correct that, I suppose. Dr. Findlay: It makes a very vast difference in "the whole meaning of his cross-examination. Mr. Atkinson: He still remembers the night of McGeorge going away. It is clear from the context still that the night refers to the night of the crime, and he remembers it from McGeorge's departure. In his cross-examination in 1894, he says, "I know the day McGeorge left the hut: I took a note of it.", A little while later he says, —,_

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