Part 18 in our series on William Hills: Krugersdorp was a legal paradise
The court was crowded with spectators for the libel action against the Sentinel.
Krugersdorp was the happy hunting ground for attorneys, and they all seemed to make a living in 1897, wrote Benoni City Times founder William Hills.
“The official or administrative head of the dorp was the Landdrost, then there were several assistant Landdrosts, who mostly specialised in court work with publieke aanklaers (public prosecutors) to match,” Hills wrote in an autobiographical series of articles in 1940.
“The Landdrosts got through an amazing number of cases in an amazingly short time but even so they often worked from 08:30 till dark.”
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The courts were held in different buildings scattered throughout the dorp.
“Much of the time, the officials were occupied with libel actions, most of which Douglas Blackburn (editor of the Sentinel) was the defendant.
“Blackburn, before coming to South Africa, had been a barrister and always conducted his case.
“One of the causes célèbre of Krugersdorp was an action in which Morrey Hollander was the plaintiff.”
The court was crowded with spectators for the libel action against the Sentinel, according to an excerpt of an article in the paper by Blackburn, and reproduced in a 1978 volume of the journal English in Africa, as posted on the online platform Sabinet.
Blackburn wrote that he was “charged under Article 6 of the Press Law, with taking away the good name and reputation” of Hollander, of Johannesburg, an engineer by trade, who “was at present running a menagerie”.
In the story of his life as a journalist, Hills said he did not think Blackburn ever lost a case.
“And the person who charged him always had the most uncomfortable time, especially when Douglas’s brightest samples of humour in the cross-examination were recorded not only in the local but in the Johannesburg press.”
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By this time, Hills worked for the Krugersdorp Times and the Roodepoort Mail, which operated from the same premises, was the local representative for the Johannesburg evening daily The Star and was the West Rand representative of the morning daily The Johannesburg Times.
“It was remarkable how the different reports corroborated each other, with Blackburn and myself responsible between us for three Johannesburg dailies and three local papers.
“Blackburn was about the only man I have ever known who has not complained that he was inadequately reported.”
Next time: When Krugersdorp was young
(Article: Carol Stier)
