SERIOUS CHARGE. — ATTEMPTED RAPE ON A HOTELKEEPER'S WIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5359, 20 January 1879, Page 2

SERIOUS CHARGE. — ATTEMPTED RAPE ON A HOTELKEEPER'S WIFE.

A grave charge of an attempt to commit a rape on a married woman will come before the Police Court to-day. Thomas Williamson Brown has been arrested on warrant on this charge. The prosecutrix is Mrs. Evinsen, wife of Charle3 Evinsen, of the Scotia Hotel, Hobson-street, and the prisoner is a comparative stranger in New Zealand. He recently arrived from Australia, and was employed as ticket taker during the time Madame Cora and Val Vose performed at the Lorne-street Hall. He had bean at the Scotia Hotel on Wednesday night, bat did not stay there. On Thursday evening he required a bed, to which Mr. Evinsen shewed him. Mrs. Evinsen had in the meantime retired for the night, closing but not locking her door, as her husband was still engaged at the hotel bar. According to Mrs. Evinsen's account, she must have been in bed for some time, but at about halfpast 11 o'clock she was aroused. Some one was in the bed, and she called out: "Is that you, Charlie ?" The man replied in the affirmative, but she passed her hand over his face and detected the fraud, and at once screamed for assistance. The man arrested is close-shaved, and has only a moustache, while Mr. Evinsen has a beard of some leogth. Mrs. Evinsen's screams of course brought the servants and landlord, and the invader decamped post-haste, but one of the girls saw him rush to his own room from Mrs. Evinsen's, and identified him, although when search was made he appeared to he fast asleep in his own room. A warrant was taken out, and he was arrested yesterday. The accused had not been lodging at the hotel, and was a stranger there. On Thursday niqht he had been shewn to a room by the landlord, and it transpires that, before his entrance into Mrs. Evinsen's room, he had effected an entrance into a room occupied by one of the servant girls, a:id been driven out of it. These are the circumstances as they now appear, and which will be inquired into today. The charge is a very serious one, and it will come before the Police Magistrate today, to take evidence as to whether there is a prima facie case to send for trial to the Supreme Court.