LYING IN COURT.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
Sit,—The Spectator of December 26th, 1891, liar only just reached me out here. Commenting on the late "Pearl Case," you suggest the passing of a law making "simple lying in Court," when deliberate, an offence punishable by a Magis- trate. You will doubtless be pleased to learn that your idea is actually in practice in the Gold Coast Colony. An ordinance has lately been passed there making lying in Court punishable summarily. I have not the ordinance before me, but I think the offence is regarded somewhat in the light of contempt of Court.
The inhabitants of the Gold Coast (barring Haussas), are not more prone to give false testimony than the witnesses one sees in the various Courts at home, and I fancy that the adoption of the principle of the Gold Coast ordinance in England would tend considerably to make witnesses more truthful. The liability to be summarily dealt with for mere deliberate lying, would have a specially wholesome and restraining influence in minor civil and criminal matters, where parties, generally rightly, guess that no one is going to the trouble of indicting them for perjury, even when the perjury is clearly material to the issue, and is provable by the necessary two witnesses.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. BRANDFORD GRIFFITH.
St. Elizabeth, Jamaica, January 29th.
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