SUPREME COURT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11530, 17 March 1898, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

[Pbb Press Association.] AUCKLAND, March 16. Henry Hayson, aged twenty-seven, was acquitted of arson at the Supreme Court sessions on the ground of insanity, and was sent to the asylum pending the Colonial Secretary’s pleasure. He had been in, the asylum ten years ago. Mary Ramshottom, charged with murdering her illegitimate infant, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. His Honor, in sentencing the girl, said;—“ Prisoner, you have been exceedingly fortunate in that the jury have taken such a lenient view of your case. They would have been quite justified in arriving at a different verdict which would have placed your life in danger. Tou have been in great peril. I can hardly imagine, under the circumstances, how you could be guilty of such cruelty as to leave your unfortunate child to die of starvation.” A youth, Albert Edward Frost, convicted last week of having stolen a large sum of money and a quantity of kauri gum from the whares of a number of Austrian gum-diggers at Waihopo, was brought up and sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment with hard labour. WELLINGTON, Mabch 16.

The Healeys were fined -E25 each, and allowed three months to pay in. In the conspiracy case, in which three young Maoris, John King, Patora Ngaihi and Wiremu Hurn, were charged with conspiring to defraud Peter Steven, a Syrian trader, out of goods and money, the accused were acquitted, and the Judge expressed his concurrence with the verdict.