DOMINION ITEMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 November 1923, Page 5

DOMINION ITEMS

(Per Press Association.) WOMAN SHOT. OAAI2X.RU, November 6. Mrs Cairney, wife of Mr Thomas Cairney, schoolmaster at Duntroon, shot herself in the head with a pea rifle this morning. She had been suffering from nervous debility. An inquest will be held to-morrow. SALE OF STOCK". PALMERSTON NORTH, Nov. 7. At the Supreme Court, Robert Alexander Sloan pleaded guilty at Levin of illegally selling for £169, stock, under a bill of sale to the Government. He was admitted to three years’ probation, and ordered to make restitution of the amount in weekly payments. GIG ACCIDENT. PAHIATUA, November 6. A gig containing residents of Ngawapurua overturned on the Mangatainoka Road. Airs James Heavy sustained a broken collar-bone and shock. Her condition is reported serious. Afiss Eileen Heavy received a severe gash on the head. Airs Alexander Dunlop sustained severe cuts on the leg, and shock. A MEAN TRICK. NAPIER, November 6. Edgar Eddy pleaded guilty at the Police Court this morning and was committed for sentence, on a charge of forging a name to a notice of engagement which he sent to a newspaper for publication. The evidence disclosed that accused considered a certain girl had jilted him, and, out of spite, he wrote a notice of hey engagement to a third party and signed the nariie of the last-named. MOTORING FATALITY. WELLINGTON, November 6. James Ashwood, aged 72 years, died to-night as the result of injuries received in a motor accident. It appears he obtained a lift * from a carrier named Thomas Hatchard, and while coming down from Kelburn, the lorry failed to negotiate a corner, and capsized down a bank. Ashwood endeavoured to jump clear, and received a fractured rib and internal injuries. Hatchard escaped with a se't&re shaking. -'S3

DUNEDIN SESSIONS. DUNEDIN, November 6. At the Supreme Court to-day, true bills were found in all cases. David Smyth' Coutts. on a charge of indecent assault on a girl five years of age, was found “Not guilty.” Thomas Joseph Christie, alias Joseph Williams, was indicted on two charges of breaking, entering and theft, and stealng approximately £l4O from the offices of the Otago Farmers’ Co-operative Association, Dunedin and MdSgiel. The case was partly heard, and the court adjourned. ’QUAKES RECORDED. WELLINGTON, November 6. A severe earthquake has been detected at Kelburn observatory. It has, with the help of a wireless message from Samoa, been located as near the Solomon Islands, which are a wellknown earthquake zone. The shocks would appear to recur at intervals of about five years. One was recorded in September of 1913 and another’ in June of 1918. The Tonga group is also one of the susceptible spots in the Pacific, and, as most of the others have had a turn, it is an interesting speculation whether the next great shock may come from that quarter. It is, however, far enough away not to affect Australasia.

UNSATISFACTORY TRIAL. WELLINGTON, November 6. The prosecution of two young men, alleged to have been concerned in shortages in the Wellington Repatriation Office, was advanced a stage further to-day, when charges against Frank Victor Herbert Coull and Harry Patrick Hodgins were called at the Supreme Court in chambers. Mr P. S. Mackassey applied for a change of venue, in view of several trials which have been held without agreements being reached by Wellington juries. The proceedings were not open to the Press. Sir John Findlay, K.C., appeared in opposition to the application. After hearing the statements of the prosecution counsel, a change of venue was granted. CIVIL SERVANTS’ THEFT. AUCKLAND, November 6. , In the Magistrate’s Court Everard Stores Braithwaite, aged 23 years, pleaded guilty, and was committed for sentence on two charges of theft of Government moneys, one of £4 6/ and the other of £5l 1/3. Accused, who was a clerk in the Land and Diainage Branch of the Lands and Surveys Department, Auckland, had been sent to country Courts to represent the Department when defaulters were sued. Accused said his salary was too small to keep a wife and child, and when he learned that another child was to be born, he felt a bit mad, wondering how he would feed it. In view of the high rents, he decided to build. He yielded to the temptation to retain the money, spending £3O on a section, and the remainder on ■ confinement expenses.