SUPREME COURT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15456, 7 November 1910, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

[Per Press Association.]

WELLINGTON, November 6.

Several prisoners ca.mo up for sentence before his Honor the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout) at the Supreme Court yesterday. A Maori youth named Mita Harawira Renata, who on October 3 entered tho shop of William M'Kain, at Mobaka, and stole a bag containing £l9 13s 9d and a silver wateh valued at £2 10Sj and who also entered the shop on a previous occasion and stole a canvas bag containing £lO 18s Bd, was tho first to appear in the dock. A sentence of six months' imprisonment n-s-, inflicted. Robert Ernest Powell admitted that on October », at Christchurch, ho sent a telegram to Stephen Hart, Wellington, with intent that It should be acted upon as boing sont by the authority of 11. Sanders. Prisoner, who had nothing to say for himself, was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. Ernest Alfred Doreen, who pleaded guilty to the theft of a saddle and bridle valued at £6 at Ashhurst, put in a written statement when asked if lie had anything to eay. His Honor: " You ask mo not to declare you to be an habitual criminal, but you have had no less than fifteen previous convictions. I don't know what to do with you." After reading a long list of previous crimes his Honor asked the gaoler if there was any chance of getting the accused to the Invercargill reformatory prison, as "no did not like to give the young man an indefinite sentence. Mr Millington: "It is overcrowded just now, -your Honor." His Honor: "I think it would ho bettor to give you the indeterminate sentence at New Plymouth gaol to see if it would do you any good. Ton will bo given six months' imprisonment and be declared an habitual criminal, the seuteuco to be concurrent with the present one. If you behave yourself yen will perhaps get out in a year's time, or possibly less. You have served three years' imprisonment during the last six years. It is tho effect of drink, and the only chance is for you to bo an absolute abstainer."