The Question of Date.

Into the question of date we do not propose to enter, as it is one of immense complexity, and would take far more space than we can possibly spare for its adequate handling McGeorge's departure from the hut was the event by which Lambert professed to fix the date of the theft of the sheep and this was conceded by both parties in 1887, and again in 1895, to have been the 17th October. The selection was a fortunate one for Meikle, for the facts that it was a Monday that it was an exceedingly wet day, and that an auction of stock ("Waters' sale") had been held that day on an adjoining farm made it very easy to identify. Possibly the proof of such weather as would make the driving of sheep impossible at any rate after dark, and the overwhelming evidence duced in 1895 that Lambert was at Mataura, some twelve miles away, on the evening of that day, induced him—not at the eleventh hour, but in the nineteenth year—to make a change. Tuesday, the 18th October, was at any rate urged upon the Commission as the date of McGeorge's departure and of the alleged crime by counsel for the Crown, who though they repudiated the identity at the opening of the case, had become indistinguishable from counsel for Lambert long before its close. Though we believe that the attempt failed, and that McGeorge himself was right in sticking to the Monday, and that the Commissioners must have so found if they had not evaded this question along with the rest, we page 21 must for the reason already given be content to leave it upon the overwhelming presumption that the correct date was that fixed when the events were but a few weeks old, and not that announced for the first time after eighteen years had passed, If the 17th is the correct date, then the tempestuous weather and Lambert's presence at Mataura late that evening rendered it impossible that the sheep were driven as alleged, or that he was there to see them. If, on the other hand, the change to the 18th has been correctly made, then the utmost it proves is that Lambert might have seen the theft committed that evening. Whether he did see it would still depend upon the general credibility of his story.