MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1910, Page 8

MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

» . Mr. W. G. .Biddell, S.M., presided at : •the Magistrate's Court to-day. One first offender for drunkenness was dealt with. Patrick Commane was convicted and discharged for drunkenness, and fined 40s (with the alternative of seven days ' in gaol) for refusing to quit licensed premises when requested to do so by the \ licensee. To a charge of having used obscene language, Frank Hansen pleaded guilty. Accused has three previous convictions. He was fined £4, in default twenty-one days' imprisonment. A young man named Sydney Smithers appeared for <J»ntence, having pleaded guilty to a charge of using obscene language. When h© appeared at the court previously, Sub-Inspector Norwood asked for a remand, that accused's antecedents might be enquired into. It ■was stated this morning that Smithers was an old offender, having been previously convicted in several parts of New Zealand and in Australia. A sentence of two months in gaol was imposed. In the case of Sidney Diamond, charged with the theft of 15s from his employers, the A.M.P. Society, Mr. H. •F. O'Leary's application for a remand was granted. Bail, as before, was allowed. A youth of fifteen, who appeared in the Juvenile Court on two charges of theft, was remanded till 18th May, and ordered" to report himself daily to the police. At the Mount Cook Police Court today, before Mr. T. S. Lambert, J.P., two first offenders charged with drunkenness, were each fined 10s, with the option of forty-eight hours iv gaol. Henry Young, also charged with being intoxicated, was fined ss, or twenty-four hours' imprisonment. Louis Cade, for drunkenness, was fined ss, with the usual alternative. A first offender who pleaded guilty to insobriety was convicted and discharged.

Several hundred cases of oranges from Tahiti and Raratonga, transhipped from the Talune at Auckland were landed at Wellington to-day by the Tarawera. A smile went round the courtroom today when a witness hesitated in his reply to a question asked by Mr. J, H. Hosking, K.C., as to the weight of coal in tho sacks placed on the deck of the Duco. The witness had stated that he put 10£ tons of coal on the deck of the steamer. "If I order a ton of coal, how much do you supply?" queried counsel. "I generally put it at so much to the ton — eithe rby basket or bag — ten aacks to the ton," replied the witness. "You don't give a bag in?" was asked. 'JAt tunes I do," was the response, "but I do not remember that I gave the lsuco any extra weight." 'Tendera are iuvited by the Wellington Harbour Board far the supply and delivery of hardwoods; also for hydraulio woolpress.