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The most unevenly balanced mind to be found in this country will be found located some where about the person of District Judge Prowse -always supposing he has a mind at all. Every one has been made familiar with the eccentric vagaries of the man, and it has for a long time been clear that it would be difficult to find in this country 4 man less suited to discharge the duties of a Stipendiary Justice of the Peace than Mr. D. W. Prowse. The latest escapade of this map is perhaps the most reprehensible. Depositions are being prepared and inquiries made relative to the terrible melee which re sulted in the death of Levi King. So far as we have been able to learn, the inquiry has been conducted on the strictest privacy. Even members of the legal profession were excluded; why it should be so and why the practice should be different from what obtains in Britain where the preliminary investigation is conducted is as public a mancer as the final trial, we are at a loss to imagine. [But so it is, and the committing Justice of the Peace has before now exercised the right to exclude even prisoners Counsel. Now, ‘ Judge’ Prowse, we are informed, was guilty of the gross impropriety of loaning to the editor of the Mercury the original depositions taken in connection with the matter. These de positions were the property of the Crown, and never for a moment should they have passed into the custody or possession of any outsider. If the Magistrate had invidiously admitted the editor of the Mercury and permitted him to be present during the preliminary investigation he would not have been guilty of as gross a piece of impropriety. We say impropriety, but the word does not at all express the enormity of the offence. The original depositions are sent to the Grand Jury and their contents to a great extent govern that body in the finding or rejecting the indict ment. In the event of a witness deviating from his original statement, how would the Magistrate justify his action in the matter? We spare no pains in placing before our readers the most exact and reliable information that can be obtain ed in reference to any subject of interest, but we would have deemed it an unwarrantable imper tinence and intrusion, if we had applied at the Magistrate's office for information. Judge Prowse is responsible for the theories and utterances of the Mercury upon this subject. These theories and utterances are Judge Prowse's, and we shall ot fail to hold him responsible for them in the uture.
Newspaper Details
St Johns Evening Telegram
St Johns, Newfoundland, CA
Thu, Oct 11, 1883
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
CA 15 Feb 2026
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