CO129-192 - Governor Hennessy - 1881 [1-4] — Page 480

The situation is so absurd that the only inference I can draw is that the Chief Justice is in a state requiring medical care. As I have already said, he showed a dislike towards me from the very first, and later behaved outrageously towards me, so that I, who was very ill at the time and had become quite hysterical, burst involuntarily into tears. He then changed; I suppose softened by the fact of a man weeping (a thing I had never done before), for he held out his hand and said he hoped we should be friends and invited me to dinner - an invitation which I accepted. I couldn't sit as Registrar and the Deputy Registrar, and then I thought all would go well.

Soon afterwards, the estimates for the Court Expenses were sent to me by the Colonial Secretary, and I, knowing nothing about the matter, handed the paper to the Deputy Registrar, who is also the Sheriff and Clerk of the Court, to fill up the figures, which he did. On his suggestion, I sent the paper on to the Chief Justice to make any alterations he thought proper. He returned the paper with a written note that it had not been sent in the proper way.

On the following day, I saw him, and he said I ought to write to the Colonial Secretary and tell him that he had made a mistake in sending it. At least, I have been told he said so. About the matter, the day before yesterday, the Chief Justice came down to the court to pass some final accounts in intestacy, which I had prepared as a merely formal matter, but necessary to be done before the estates are finally disposed of. When, on my approaching him, he began to insult me in the most outrageous manner, as though he were labouring under extreme cerebral irritation. In fact, I never heard or saw a lunatic more violent in language and gesture. Fortunately, no one was present.

As soon as the Registrar came in, he moderated his tone and said he should adjourn the Court, as I was the petitioner. I said I would not do that, as there clearly was no mistake - in which he said that he was the Head of the Department and I was only his clerk. I simply replied that I was Registrar and he was Chief Justice, and then the matter ended, as I thought. I returned the Estimates signed and thought no more about it.

I must attend. I then adjourned the Court, and very shortly afterwards, I received from him a long letter charging me with disrespect to the Court and adverting to my having sent in the Estimates and acted as the head of the Department. The letter, which I have, will speak for itself. One of the counts he makes is even more than the others; it is that I wrote to the Colonial Secretary to ask for a rise in the salary of a man from $40 to $50 per month. It seems that Barros had made some complaint before he went, for the man is really a hardworking individual.

I told Plunkett of his promise, and I thought it reasonable and wrote to the Colonial Secretary. I first spoke to the Chief Justice, and he said he thought the man was well off on $40 per month, but nothing else passed from which I could gather that he had any objection to my writing in his behalf. But this was one of the charges he made in his letter. By answer to the letter, I wrote and I think...

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