Supreme Court.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5890, 23 July 1890, Page 3

Supreme Court.

CRIMINAL SITTINGS. YESTERDAY. (Before His Honor Judge Couolly.) LARCENY. After wo wont to press yesterday afternoon further evidence was taken iv the against Williiira Cuntehn. ]•, ti, tJ i, K li L ..t. meat were two counts, of stealing a letter from the Taradalo post offiuo, containing v cheque for 111 10s, and with receiving the wutenta of the letter, knowing it to bo stolen. The UQCUsctl stated that hU daughter gave him tho cheque. Elizabeth Cautelin, aged eleven ye«rs>, deposed she found the cheque and pave it to her father; she picked it up near Mr Neagle's house. A man gave her tho other cheque for £1 os. To the Crown Prosecutor : He was a little man, standing on Ryan's verandah at the time. The mini told her to go and cash the cheque at fctowurt'e, but she did not know why she did not go to that place tv cash it. She did not go to school, and could neither read nor write.

HLh Honor, in summing up, gaid it was pretty clear that the letter was stolen, and it was quite ebnr that tho prisoner received and made ui»e of the content*. Tho question for the jury to consider was, when accused received the letter and made use of tho contents, did ho know it W!ih stolen. That a man should give the yirl a cheque for £11 19d seemed a most extraordinary story. If tho jury thought that the prisoner had taught the girl to lie aud to steal, then they must return a verdict accordingly.

After a short retirement the jury roturuu'l a verdict of jjuilty of receiving, but not guilty of stealing thu letter. The Crown Prosecutor said tho Grand Jury had found a true bill against accused toe iorgnig thu endorsement on tho cheque, and also for stealing a cheque for £1 3s. Ihe circumstances were fully- b,.f, re His Honor, ho, m those cases h e would (is k leave to enter a untlr provrjni, ilis Honor quite agreed wifh that course. Accused, in reply to Hi. j torK)l . KuiJ j hoped he would take into con S i,l u r l ,ti,,, I that, he had a sick wife aud family porfectlv destitute. * iLiitouy His Honor said it invariably happened tUHt tho piinulimont of th,, Ku ilf y fol f )c * L(i oerfuu extent upon the innocent 1,, +i,;! eu.e ho hstr.ll;.- thought that pr w" family would bo tho » (11W d( " 0 his absfiico. Ho could j :( >t hav V ' th . Hinalk'Ht doubt iv Lis mind that tho lit'lo girl of prisoner's liad been instructed to coniniitporjury. Tlio child waa probably too youtij,' aud igrorant to be ;uvar« of' the very serious position iv which she had boon placed by her father, by wearing that which ho was sura no reasonable man iv the Court would believe. The child had

been trained by accused to enter tho shop and steal letters from tho counter; how many other letters might have been stolen and never reached their destination it was impossible to say. He would not tako into account the matters upon which accused had not been convicted, and which had been withdrawn by the Crown Prosecutor with his fullest approval, but would visit upon him a heavier sentence than he would have done if he had been found guilty of stealing the letter. Tho law allowed prisoner to give evidence, but he looked upon it that if an accused parson gave evidence which was found to be perjury, it greatly aggravated the original offence, and ho considered that accused had instructed the little child to commit perjury, which, in his mind, greatly aggravated the offence upon which prisoner had been convicted. The sentence of the Court would be eighteen calendar months' imprisonment with hard labor.