POLICE COURT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 225, 28 September 1897, Page 5

POLICE COURT.

THIS DAY.

(Before Mr H. W. Brabant, S.M.)

Drunkenness.—Two first offenders were fined ss, or. in default 24 hours' hard labour., Stealing Firewood.—A young man named George Pearce was charged with stealing three pieces of wood, valued Is, the property of J. J. Craig.—Sergeant Clarke said' a number of complaints had been made to the police about wood being taken from firewood yards at night.— Accused said he had permission to take the wood. —The case was remanded till tomorrow to admit of Mr Craig being present. Betting on Racecourses.— .Richard May was charged with unlawfully using a certain place, to wit an enclosure known as Ellerslie racecourse ground, for the purpose of betting upon horse races with persons resorting thereto.—The case was adjourned at the request of both parties till October sth.

Hawkers and the Half-holiday.— A young Assyrian hawker named Charles Zaney was charged with that at Auckland, being the occupier of a shop within the meaning of the Shop and Shop Assistants' Act, 1894, he did fail to close his shop from the hour of one o'clock in the afternoon on the day appointed for the weekly halfholiday during the week ending September 11th, and there being no public holiday during the week.—The defendant said it was the lirst time he had been hawking and he did not know that hawkers were not allowed to sell goods on the halfholiday.—Mr McAlister, who appeared for the Inspector (Mr Ferguson) pointed out that by the Act every hawker shall be deemed to be a shopkeeper. Some of them kept shops, which they shut at one o'clock and then went out hawking.—Defendant was convicted and lined 20s and costs.—This is the first case brought against a hawker here for the infringement of the half-holiday .regulations. ALL.KGED Desertion.—A woman named Mary Ann Barton, was charged that she had unlawfully abandoned her child under two years of age.—On-the,; application of the police the case was adjourned till Monday, October 4th.

Assault.—Samuel Walter Howard was charged with unlawfully assaulting Grace Gallagher.—The complainant in her evidence stated that accused struck her on the arm with a bellows, and then hit her on the head with an iron bar (produced).—■ Dr. Baldwin said the woman was admitted to the Hospital suffering from a superficial scalp wound. It was highly improbable that it was caused by the bar in question, which was about 18 inches long and an inch in thickness, and which would have caused a much more serious wound.—Defendant denied using the iron bar at all, and said the wound was caused by a pair of tongs which lie was trying to dra^ out of the complainant's hands.—His Worship said the defendant may not have used the bar, but nevertheless must have acted in a vio'ent manner.—Accused was convicted and sentenced to two months' hard labour.

The steamer Apex, which called at Sfc. Lucia (West Indies) for coals recently, re* ported that off the north-east coast of the island she ran through a regular sea of petroleum, which floated so thickly on the surface that it could be drawn on board by buckets. This oil (says an English paper), must be part of the cargo of the ship Belle of Bath, oound from New York to Hong Kong with 50,000 cases of oil, and which caught fire and was abandoned 140 miles east, half south of Barbadoes, at which place her crew arrived in their boats.

Pasty and muddy complexion, pimples, and unsightly eruptions cured by Llorente's Laxative Pills.— (Advt.)