LAW AND POLICE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4813, 20 April 1877, Page 3

LAW AND POLICE.

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.— Thursday. ' [Before E. C. Barstow, Esq., R.M.] The ordinary weekly sitting for hearing and determining small debt claims, was held this morning, and the following business disposed of : UNDEFENDED CASES : JUDGMENT FOB PLAINTIFF'S. W. R. Hayward v. R. B. Vance,.r claim, £12; Close Bros. v. W. Messenger, JE4 6s 8d ; W. R. Hay ward-v. H. Evans, £133. DUNNErr V. KUNZT. Claim, £34 Is 6d. Mr. J. B. Russell for the plaintiff, Mr. Keetley for the defendant. This was an action upon a promissory note. The defendant made the note, but it was passed from hand to hand through a Mr. Rosser until it came into the hands of the present holder. The defendant said he was paralysed, and without any means. Mr. Russell said the defendant had had property which he made over to his sou. He believed that the defendant might have paid the amount if he had felt so disposed. He understood the defendant had the means of discharging this debt since the note fell due.

Mr. Keetley said the defendant was wholly unable to work. He was a foreigner, and wholty dependent upon his children. His Worship thought the ease a bad one. If this note were made at a time when Mr. Kunzt knew he had no means of meeting it when it fell due, it was nearly as bad as the action of a person, who having no funds, Bigned a cheque upon a bank. Mr. Keetley proposed, and Mr. Russell consented to an adjournment for a week, in order that some arrangement might bo made for payment. SINCLAIR V. WILSON. Claim, £5. This was an action for the detention of a concertina, which the plaintiff alleged to bo his, but which the defendant said "as made a present to him by the plaintiff. The facts were simple, but illustrated a particular phase of social life and enterprise. The plaintiff is a porter, and the defendant is also a young working man. The latter plays the corcertina, and the former was anxious to learn the same accomplishment, with the view to starting " a dance." An understanding was come to that the plaintiff should obtain the hall where the dance was to be held, and he was also to bo responsible. The defendant was to teach tho plaintiff hoiv to play the concertina, for the music for the dance was to be supplied by two concertinas. The plaintiff proceeded to Mr. Montague's shop, where he bought a concertina, for which he gave three pounds ten, and Mr. Montague told him there was not another like it in Auckland. The defendant was teaching the plaintiff upon another instrument, and the mode of teaehing appeared to be that the instructor played the tnne, the plaintiff watched the lingering and " followed the example." It was explained that the plaintiff told the defendant that he did not think he could learn by note. However, the necessary number of tunes were "got up" to start the dance, and the Catholic Institute, in Wellington-street, was to be the temple for the time dedicated to Terpsichore. But it is an old old story that even the worship of the gods is frustrated by the disagreements of men, and a conversation occurred in respect of thenewconcertina, from which the defendant understood that it was presented to him as a reward for teaching the plaintiff, but the plaintiff said he referred to another concertina altogether. As to tho making the present tho defendant brought three witnesses all of whom said that there was a present of a concertina ; but there was some ambiguity as to the identity of the instrument which was to be the gift. The plaintiff's wife deposed that from conversation she had heard between her husband and the defendant, there was never an intention on the part of the plaintiff to make a present of that concertina. His Worship gave judgment that the concertina should be returned to plaintiff within 4S hours or that the defendant should pay £3 10s in dofault.

ADJOURNED. W. J. Hurst v. A. Pargie ; Laybourne v. McGregor (to this morning); Hulme v. Chalmers; the same v. G. H Evans • Dunnett v. Kunzt. '