LOCAL AND GENERAL

Evening Star, Issue 20255, 16 August 1929, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Tho man who had roamed the Okeke (New Plymouth) district with a slasher for the past fortnight, causing alarm amongst the residents because of his alleged entry of several homes and because of the finding of a heifer decapitated and partly dismembered, was arrested without trouble yesterday after a long search by Constable Mills am. the settlers. The man had slept on Wednesday night in a shed on the property of Mr W. Hardgraves. The settler-, gave him breakfast in the morning, arid he accepted work on the property. Constable Wills was informed, and' took the man in charge without difficulty. The slasher, it is said, had been left in the hills. The man was known in the district as Johnson, but it is doubtful if that is his correct name. Ho will appear before the court. A Press Association telegram _ from Hamilton reports that Henry Hinton, aged eighty-five, has been missing since Monday. He is described as a stronglybuilt man, sft lOin in height, with grej hair and beard. He was staying at a boarding house at Frankton, and later went to visit his son at Ohaupo. He then came back to Hamilton, whew all’ trace of him has been lost. The missing man is well known in the Waikato. He has sons at Hamilton, Taupin. Ohaupo, and Ohinewai, and a sister at Newstead.

la tiie Magistrate’s Court, New Plymouth this morning William Macasey was C( nvicted and admitted to proba/tioa‘ for twcl r e months and his license suspended for that period, Handley Brown was convicted and admitted to probation tor two years and his license suspended for that period. Both were charged with being intoxicated while in charge of cars. Tho need for a ramp over the Petoue crossing and also the flutt Park crossing was recognised by tho Prime Minister (Sir Joseph Ward). When a local bodies’ deputation claimed that the Government should bear the expense. Sir Joseph Ward remarked that there was a large number of people using the raoki' services who paid nothing towards the roads except ordinary taxation. ! He would suggest to his colleagues that the Government should pay two-thirds, the local bodies to find the rest. The Government money would not come out of the highways funds. The Petone ramp is estimated to cost £58,000, and the ramp at the Hutt Park crossing £IO,OOO. The following prisoners were sentenced at Wellington by His Honour Mr Justice Smith:—Stanley Jessie Dark, theft of £4OO as a servant, two years’ reformative detention Toare Mina Rewi, forgery at Masterton, probation for one year; Peter Sorensen, aged sixty-six, indecent assault on a female child, six months’ imprisonment; Walter Whitehouse, theft of £CSB. two years’ reformative detention; Henry Ernest Shirnack, indecent assault on a female, assault on a female, and theft, three years in the Borstal Institute; David Swift, breaking and entering and theft, two years’ reformative detention; William Edward Francis., assault and robbery and two charges of assault on a female, two years in the Borstal Institute. Nathaniel John Reed, who recently injured a motor cyclist by running into him while driving a car on the Hutt road, came up for sentence. Counsel said that prisoner had pleaded guilty rather than wait three months in prison, and that the accident was due to cigarette ash blowing into his eye. His Honour said no one would suppose that prisoner deliberately to injure the young man, but if while intoxicated in charge of a motor car he launched himself upon the Hutt road on a Sunday evening he was really guilty of a criminal offence. Probation would not be granted, nor was tho case one for a fine. He would be sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, and bis license cancelled for three vears.