Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-11-24
Years Of Litigation
For Watch That Stopped
Special Correspondence Of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star
LONDON. November 6. 1907.
A T the crown Office of the law courts
~ a few days ago little white
haired old man, still spry on his
pins despite his eighty-seven years
walked into one of the departments and
deposited a bulky document, which
proved to be an affidavit. 1T relates to
an action which am taking against the
crown and parliament for 100000 dam
ages he told the clerk, land I want to
sue in forma pauperis.'
| Thereby hangs one OF the most amaz-
ing stories of a struggle for Justice
against legal barricades. circumlocution.
red tape and official apathy that has ever
emerged from the law courts.
John William Burt is the name of the
! octogenarian ltigant His suit for $780,
| watch one November day nineteen years
! ago. Burt was then a farmer in far-dis-
| tant Tasmania. He paid $25 for the
watch, which he bought Of a matchmaker
in Fingal. getting with it guarantee of
| two years. The watch stopped after run
ming seventeen hours. With the stopping
of that cheap gold watch Burts troubles
started, and they have kept going ever
since.
Burt sent the watch back to the watch
| that was returned to him was not the
watch he had paid $25 for. he says. but
one Of inferior quality. Burt thereupon
brought an action against the watch
maker. The magistrate before whom the
case came advised Burt to accept a judg-
ment of non-suit, and in the presence of
witness return the watch to the watch
maker and then sue again to recover his
own timepiece.
-.
Burt asted on this advice. The watch
maker acknowledged the receipt of the
watch by wiping up the floor with Burt.
He had to lay up for repairs for several
weeks after that AS soon as he was
able to leave his bed he sued the watch
maker for assault and battery. When the
case came up for trial it turned out that
instead of judgment of non-suit in the
first proceedings verdict against Burt
had been entered. In effect that was
legal decision that the matchmaker was
the aggrieved party and that Burt had
falsely accused him of swindling. In
view of this the court dismissed the &C
ton against the matchmaker and saddled
the whole costs on poor Burt. Since then
mis- life has been one continuous struggle
to obtain rehearing of his first suit
That wrong verdict had been entered
was admitted but as the law was inter-
preted by the legal authorities of Tas-
mania there was no method by which
the wheels of justice could be made to
revolve backward and substitute a right
verdict for the wrong one. The watch
maker had a big political pull and that
was exerted against Burt to the utmost.
Burt appealed to the local courts for
redress half a dozen times with no other
result than to get himself imprisoned for
contempt. Finally the matter was brought
before the Tasmanian parliament. Sc
lect committee was appointed, which re-
ported in Burts favor. But that did not
suffice to give him a fresh start in the
litigation with the wrong verdict erased.
According to the opinion of the chief JUS
tice of the colony Sir William Dobson,
he could obtain d legal clean slate only
through a special act of the imperial par
Lament in London and the royal assent
thereto.
1t had taken Burt eleven years of con-
tinuous fighting to find out that. In the
meanwhile the lawyers had gobbled up
his farm and his means were utterly ex
hausted. Public feeling on behalf of the
old man, who had been beggared in his
efforts to obtain justice, was strongly
aroused in Tasmania. \ fund was raised
to enable him to come to England and
renew the fight here. He arrived in 1899.
He appealed to the privy council, to Queen
Victoria and later to King Edward. The
emulation Of a mass of official cor
respondence that would fill a furniture
van. The wrong verdict still stands
against him. No compensation for all he
has lost in striving to set it right has
ever been awarded him.
That he will succeed In his present en-
deavor when he is seeking to sue as
pauper is extremely improbable. Official
dom regards him as that worst of all
nuisances-a crank with a genuine griev-
ance. The tragedy and pathos of his
struggle make no appeal to It. That sort
Of thing cannot be doeketed and pigeon
holed. Nearly a score years of his life
have been devoted to futile struggle TO
get something done for him which nobody
disputes he is justly entitled to. And it
is such a simple thing. Merely the draw
ing of line through an official record
that Is acknowledged to be false and the
substitution Of another entry for it.
OF course the old man long ago ex-
hausted the money that was subscribed
| for him in Tasmania. For several years
| he supported himself by peddling matches
| and shoe laces in the streets. Then he
| met with the one troke of good fortune
! that he has encountered since that un-
| lucky watch stopped running. He ran
across Dick Seldom, the late famous
premier of New Zealand, when the latter
was over here on some affair of state.
| He and Seldom hat been partners for
some six months In the early days of the
Australian gold fields. Because of that
| the warm hearted Seldom made some
| provision for him which relieved him of
| the necessity of earning precarious live
liiood as licensed hawker.
|
Blushing a Youthful Trouble.
| r,,1a Ill, o1,ir ir np1x Of