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purpose. If a person came to lay an information, I heard that Mr. Saunders was the copying Clerk,
Mr. Beckham seemed to take peculiar delight in hurrying me, by asking, in an impatient manner, if I had finished, and if I replied negatively, saying he had time to take ten informations.

In taking down the depositions in criminal cases, it is usual for Magistrates to repeat that portion of the evidence which is essentially necessary to be taken down, and wait till the Clerk has finished before putting other questions: not so with Mr. Beckham; and rapidly as I have written, I have at times omitted a part, and have been told in open Court, “You have left out the gist of the whole matter.”

In civil cases, Mr. Beckham does not have the evidence read over and signed by plaintiff or defendant, the Clerk, therefore, writes, to the best of his ability, that portion of the evidence which he thinks most to the point; but as it is not signed, it cannot, properly speaking, be used as evidence either for or against.

It may not, perhaps, be out of place to mention here, that in accusing me of slowness, Mr. Beckham has said, before the other Clerks, that Mr. Barry could do as much in one hour as I did in a whole day. Yet, with all my alleged slowness and incapacity, I never yet detained the Court after 4 o’clock.

Towards the latter end of May, I had to make a return of the Fines and Fees of the preceding month. I had offered to do this before at the end of April, but I was told there was no hurry. This was evidently to make out a case of six weeks incompetency against me, for Mr. Beckham told me that he knew, all along, that I was omitting to exact the proper fees. On my replying that it was not the practice in the Onehunga Court to charge 1s. 6d. and enter it as an ‘order’ when cases were dismissed, but that I should have done so had I been instructed, he said, “How can you expect that I should instruct you? I should rather look to you to instruct me. There are other Clerks who can perform your work; but as the Superintendent has thought fit to place you over them, I shall look to you to perform your duties in a proper manner.” Calling to mind at this moment that Mr. Beckham, on a previous occasion, when I had told him, that I could evidently see that he was displeased with my appointment, and did not wish to see me in the Court, had excused himself by saying, “On the contrary, I should be glad to see you here, but how could you think that I could be so unjust as to be pleased to see you placed over the heads of the other clerks?” Upon my replying that I did not see how any slight could have been shown to Mr. Piercy, for he had not applied for the vacant post, and I supposed he did not require it, being Clerk to the Legislative Council and Gazetted as Clerk to the Court under the Resident Magistrates’ Court Extension Act, and drawing a salary for the two offices of £225 per annum, and having

I did not think he was competent to perform the duties of Chief Clerk or Second Clerk. Mr. Beckham here hastily replied, “Certainly not, I should have been wrong to recommend Mr. Saunders to the post of Chief Clerk.” Now if Mr. Beckham would have been wrong in one instance, according to his own statement, he would have been doubly wrong in the other, for he told me when speaking in Mr. Piercy’s praise and the amount of work he had to perform, that had he given me his duties to perform, instead of those usually performed by the Chief Clerk he would have been forced ere this to have closed the Court in order to accomplish the work in hand.

I also perfectly recollect that Mr. Beckham told me he had to teach his clerks when they first came into his Court.

In course of conversation Mr. Beckham asked me if I did not find the duties of the Court more difficult than I expected. The Electoral Rolls, Militia Lists, and my predecessor’s ten or twelve Criminal Cases for the Supreme Court starting up to my remembrance, I said, I did, but I hoped by application and perseverance to overcome all difficulties, and I added that I thought it would puzzle a lawyer to perform the duties of Chief Clerk without some little practice. “You are right,” he said, “I believe it would puzzle a dozen lawyers”; and words which I understood to the effect [though imperfectly] that the Chief or Chief Clerk of the Provincial Government himself would find himself at a loss. After this I certainly felt myself much flattered, by his saying that if any other stranger were appointed in my place he believed he would not be able to do as well as I have done.

With regard to the Fees and Fines which I have omitted to exact in the months of April and May, I beg to refer you to the explanation attached to these monthly returns, and to call your attention to the fact, that the month of May had nearly passed before I was made acquainted with the omission. I then altered the Fee Book and paid into the Provincial Treasury the amount I had failed to claim. This vexed Mr. Beckham exceedingly, for he imagined he would have had the pleasure of complaining to the Government of a loss of about £3 by my ignorance. He, therefore, took occasion to vent his anger upon me for making erasures, saying there were none made before my time.

Mr. Beckham possibly never examined the Fee Book prior to my entrance into the Court or he would not have failed to see the erasures marked in the margin—Feb. 28th, March 7th and 23rd, Oct. 3rd and 9th, 1856. Jan. 30th, 1857.—but as it is not my wish to bring forward anything that may tend in the slightest manner to detract from my predecessor’s accuracy, but merely to protect myself from unfair treatment, I refrain from taking any further notice, or examining into records kept by clerks.