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New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9075, 21 June 1915, Page 5

The Chief Justice (Sir ’Robert Stout) on Saturday dealt with the case of Axel Edward William Lythberg, a railway clerk, who had pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a mail-bag containing money at Halcombe. Mr T. M. Wilfotd appeared for the prisoner, and applied for probation on the ground of previous good character and the fact that tho theft had not been committed while the prisoner occupied a position of trust. He had taken tho mail-hag from a van and used tho money to help !o furnish a house prior to his mar-* riage. His Honour said that the case was on tho border-line. If prisoner bad been a postal clerk ho could not have obtained probation. This would, Jn consequence of his previous good character, be granted for twelve months, on condition that the stolen money was returned within a week and JCo os paid as costs of tho prosecution. In regard to the case of Laco Stephen Curtis, late clerk of the Ohakune Borough Council, charged with theft, Sir John Findlay, K.C., explained that it had been arranged that if Curtis wore returned to Egypt, where ho had been with the military forces, he would bo again taken on and sent to the front. Another matter, however, had cropped up, which the Crown Prosecutor wished to have investigated. The prisoner was consequently remanded until to-day.