SUPREME COURT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 116, 17 May 1907, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

After tho Post went to press yesterday the following cases were disposed ~" NOT GUILTY. The jury in the case in which Wm. Plain was charged with indecent behaviour returned after 40 minutes' deliberation with a verdict of "not guilty." ALLEGED CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD. Thos. Wallace, alias Williams, alias M' Go wan was arraigned on a charge of having conspired with John Baxter and two other persons to defraud James Wm. Chapman. He was also charged with having obtained £90 from James Wm. Chapman by false pretences and with having stolen £90 from James Wm. Chapman and Arthur John Chapman. Mr. Myers prosecuted, and prisoner, who pleaded not guilty, was defended by Mr. Wilford. Mr. S. H. Snell was chosen foreman of the jury. The Crown Prosecutor, in oponing, said that the caso was one popularly called the confidence trick. James and Arthur Chapman were bricklayers, who arrived from Homo on the 2nd February last, and before they had been throe days in tho country thoy wero re- , lioved of £90 out of £100 which they possessed. Each had banked £50 on arrival. Tho brothers put up at a private hotel. Soon after their»arrival in Wellington they became acquainted with several men with whom they visitod tho Brunswick Hotel. Whilo there they wore told of a gamo known as "Tho Lady's Kiss," into tho _ myßtorios of which their new acquaintances promised to initiate them on the following day. Tho Ch&pmans withdraw their monoy from tho Savings Bank, and then met the prisoner and the othor men at the Brunswick Hotel. Prisoner had represented th&t he had been loft £17,000 by his dead brother. Ho told them thai he liked honest men, and ho promised to givo them £50. The Chapmans wero induced to put their money iv a hat, and the '.prisoner made oft, with £90 of it. When.

statement in the Chief Detective's office that he arrived in Wellington by tho Moeraki on tho 30th January, and that of tho money taken from the "mug," who had arrived by the Kumara, he had only got £2, Baxter taking the rest. The jury, after a few minutes' deliberation, brought in a verdict of "guilty," and the prisoner was sentonced to threo years' imprisonment with hard labour.