SINGULAR CASE OF ABDUCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4424, 18 January 1876, Page 3

SINGULAR CASE OF ABDUCTION.

A rather odd case of abduction waa inquired into by the magistrates at the Sandridge Police Court on January Gth. A young man named William Chambers, who has for some time followed the occupation of a touter for one of the sailors' boardinghouses in Sandridge, was charged with unlawfully taking an unmarried girl, named Marion Agnes Blankhart, under the age of 16 years, out of the possession of and against the will of her mother. The girl, who is not quite 15 jreara of age, and had been employed as servant ill a house in Sandridge, and slept at home at night. The prisoner was in the habit of seeing the girl home, and to this her mother did not object until the girl stayed out . till half past XI o'clock. On the 28th October, Mrs. Blankhart sent her daughter to the service of a Mrs. Urquhart, and on going to see her four days afterwards, found she had never been to Jtlrs. Urquhart's house. The girl stated that she met the 'prisoner at the house of a friend, and went, away with himThey slept in a shrub for two nights, and then went to Brighton, where they stayed one niglit in a bathingliouse,' and then found accommodation at the house of a market gardener named Gomm. They stayed there about 10 days, and then went to live in an'empty hut in the neighbourhood. ' The prisoner wr.a arrested on the 17th of last month'for

larceny. It transpired that the prisoner stole the goods in the hut from a place in the neighbourhood, and for this offence he was , arrested, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. The prisoner, in his defence, said that the girl went away of her own free will; and threatened that unless he took her away she -would go on the streets or throw herself into the sea. The Bench committed him for trial at the next Crimnal Sessions. . ....,