A DRUCE CASE ECHO.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 153, 27 June 1908, Page 7

A DRUCE CASE ECHO.

I The Court for the Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved safe for the last time on Saturday to consider the case of Mrs. Hamilton, the aged ■witness in ■the Druce case, who was iried for perjury at the Old Bailey recently. The jury found her guilty, but judgment was postponed pending the decision of this Court on legal questions reserved by the Judge at the trial. The evidence which ■the defendant gave was given with a view of showing that Thoma3 Charles Druce was the fifth Duke of Portland, and part of her stoTy was that she had been introduced to that supposititious •dual personage by her father, Robert Lennox Stewart, at the la tier's residence in Ijondon, whereas the prosecution said she was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson, of Holm, Westmoreland.

The evidence tendered against the defendant included a large number of documents and some admissions made by 'her at the Police Courts on the hearing of the charge against Herbert Druce, and in her examination-in the action in the King's Bench Division, in. vhich George Hollamby Druce was the plaintiff and Lord Howard de Walden and others were the defendant's. The documents were said to; be signed by the defendant as "M. J. Hamilton" or "M. J. Atkinson." There was also a copy of the account of George Hollamby Druce in the bank's ledger, which it was said showed the payment of £400 through a Mr. Coburn from Mr. George Hollamby -Druce to defendant in 1906. It was objected that the whole of these documents were inadmissible, but the Judge allowed them to be put in evidence. At the end of the case for the prosecution it was submitted by the defendant's counsel that there was no evidence to go to the jury in support of the case for the Crown, as the evidence was not sufficient in point of corroboration to meet the requirements of the law. The Judge held that there was sufficient evidence in regard to the majority of the assignment* for perjury, and the jury, convicted. The questions for the Court were whether the documents were improperly admitted in evidence, and whether there was evidence sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the law in a case of perjury. Mr. E. G. Jellicoe argued at great length the case for Mrs. Hamilton, but the Lord Chief Justice, without calling upon the other side, said that there Was not the slightest ground for saying that the documents were not properly admitted, and the evidence of corroboration ias to her statehiehts being untrue was' overwhelming. The appeal must be dismissed. The other Judges concurred, and jttifit aomidicai sbs& -affirmed. fJl _