MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 141, 14 June 1918, Page 8

MAGISTRATE'S COURT

To-day's sittings of the Magistrate's Court were presided over by Mr. S. E. M'Carthy, S.M. Only one inebriate, a first offender, figured on the list. He was ordered to forfeit his bail, 20s\ For a breach of a prohibition order, P. M'Enroe was given the option of paying a fine .of £2, and costs 7s, or going to gaol'for a fortnight. A prohibition order was issued against Alban V. Knapp. Beryl Caton was charged with being the owner of a dangerous dog. Inspector Marsack said that there had been several complaints about the animal—a bulldog—which had bitten some halfdozen persons, and the dog's latest attack was made in Maarama-crescent upon Mrs. Mary Thompson, who was bitten so badly that medical attention had to be obtained. The dog had since been destroyed by his orders. A conviction was recorded, and the owner of the dog was ordered to pay £3 3s damages and costs, in default 14 days' in the_ cells, the Magistrate remarking that if it did not meet the case, civil action could be instituted.

A. B. Saunderson, who boasts two aliases, and Myrtle Lilian Coley, who appeared on remand to answer a charge of obtaining goods to the value of £28 from the Te Aro Drapery Company by means of' a valueless cheque, were further remanded till Friday next, Chief Detective Boddam intimating that Saunderson would have to answer a somewhat similar charge at Wangamii in the meantime.

A charge of stealing six tins of condensed milk, valued at 4s, the property of the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, was preferred against Archibald James Stanaway, but on the application of Mr. H. F. O'Leary, who appeared for the accused, consideration of the case was held over for a week.

John Molloy, who had .forgotten to notify his change of address to the Government Statistician, was ordered to pay a fine of I<>3 and 7s costs.

Hugh 0. W. M'Kellar, who had left his motor-car standing in the road without proper lights, was fined £1 and costs 17s -6d.

For driving a motor-car on the wrong side of the road, whereby a collision with a motor-cycle was narrowly averted, Frederick George Wakeling was fined £3 and costs, in default twentyone days in gaol. Cecilia Parkinson and Myra Donaldson were charged with the theft of an alarm clock, valued at 7s 9d, the property of James Sturrock Robbie. The defence was that Parkinson's husband resided in the same tenement house at 98, Dixon-street, as Robbie, and the wife went to what she thought to be his room and took the clock, to which she considered she had a certain right, though, the clock was really taken for spite, as family relations had been somewhat strained. Evidence was given by Parkinson that Donaldson took no active part, but merely accompanied her to the house, and then to the dealer's shop. The accounts given by the accused when first questioned by the police at the watchhonse, however, did not correspond very well with the statements made this morning. The Magistrate held that both were equally to blame — one had committed the actual theft and the other given moral support, and accordingly sentenced each to three' months' imprisonment.

Messrs. Meek and Yon Haast ask us to state that owing to an oversight in their office, which they regret, judgment was inadvertently taken by default yesterday in the case of F. E. Cooper v. Joseph Lewis, the amount due having been previously paid to them.