AUCKLAND CRIMINAL SESSIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 786, 25 March 1887, Page 24

AUCKLAND CRIMINAL SESSIONS.

(united press association.) Auckland, March 21.

Mr Justice Ward, in opening the criminal sessions this morning, said the calendar was lighter than usual, containing only seventeen charges. There were no offences of a heinous character, one of the most serious being attempted suicide by a woman, who complained of her husband’s ill-treatment, and another charge against a woman from Tauranga of unlawfully wounding her husband. The others were oaseß of petty larceny, forgery, &c. Catherine Jones, of Tauranga, was charged with stabbing her husband with a table knife. She pleaded guilty of the act in self-defence. This was accepted as a plea of not guilty. Evidence was led, and the jury ound a verdict of not guilty. The Judge, in acquitting the prisoner, advised her in future drunken quarrels to use only the weapons provided by nature. Archibald McNair, for stealing a coat, accerdeon, and 2s cash, was sentenced to six months’ hard labor ; William Anderson, for the larceny of a silver watch and gold chain, gob two years’ hard labor; James F. Lett, for attempting to pass a counterfeit sovereign, got six months’ hard labor; Jane Horne, charged with having attempted suicide, was ac- j quitted ; Thomas King, Walter Hardy, and I Charles Coleman were sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment for stealing £25 cash and lOoz gold from John Hughes, a returned digger from Kimberley. Later.

Robert Carr, for larceny, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment ; W. McCreamar, larceny, two years; Martin Schollin, forgery, seven years; Gordon Forbes, assault and robbery, five years. Auckland, March 22.

The following sentenoes were passed to-day: Jesse Cockhead, horsestealing, three years ; Frederick Ellis and William Small, assault and robbery, seven years. March 23. At the criminal session to-day a Maori, William Conrad, on a charge of perjury, was discharged. The indictment, being defective, was quashed.