AT THE REVOLVER'S POINT.

Mataura Ensign, 29 December 1911, Page 4

AT THE REVOLVER'S POINT.

AN EXTRAORDINARY AFFAIR. I PEU IJNH'EO I'RVSS ABSOCI VCION ! AUCKLAND, Dw. 28. According to the story told by a young man named Frederick Warren i in the Police Court ho had an exciting 1 and distinctly unpleasant experience on the evening of Wednesday week. On his way horn*, alter spending a fewconvivial hours with some boon coni[panions, he called in at a small shop in Albert street, kept ostensibly for the I sale of cordials by a woman named! Margaret Dennis. He made a purchase and tendered the woman a one-j)oun<l 'note in payment. He asked for his change, and she, having ordered him to clear out, turned round, snatched a revolver from the drawer of a bureau, and the next instant he found himself looking with alarm rather than interest down into the depths of its threatening nozzle. He turned and fled incontij nently, but in the shop door ho was aejcostnd by a man, who s:nick him, snatched at his wat.hehain, and hustlod him into the street. Warren, who was now thoroughly frightened (as ho fully believed the revolver was loaded), went | in search f the nearest policeman, leaving his change in the custody of Miss Dennis. He found Constable Palmer not very far away and returned with him to the shop. The man who had assaulted Warren was nowhere to Im> seen, but the woman, after persistent knockings, opened the door. The constable found tho revolver in tho drawer, whence Warren said Miss Dennis had taken it, but the chambers contained no cartridges, and apparently the weapon, which was quite new. had never been used or even loaded. When the woman entered the witness. I box she gave a very different, version of the occurrence'. She said that when Warren came into her pla::e she treated him honorably and fairly, and gave him correct change for his one pound note, but he was not satisfied with that and demanded the return of the whole £l. She refused to do so and then he struggled with her, and handled her roughly, bruising her breast badly in his endeavor to get back his money. Mr A. N. Moodie, who appeaml for tho woman Dennis, urged that even if tho complainant's statement that defendant had presented a revolver at him were true the fact that the weapon was unloaded was in law a bar to an information alleging assault. Sub-Inspector Hendry replied that if the person at whom the weapon was presented had reason to believe it was loaded tho case under the Act was one of assault. His Worship held that an assault had l>oen committed in terms of the information and sentenced the woman Dennis to one month's imprisonment with hard labor. He, however, agreed to take a case for appeal on points of law on the accused entering into a bond to prosecute the appeal.