RESIDENT MAGISTRATES COURT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1018, 25 July 1879, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATES COURT.

THIS DA"Y. (Before T. W. Pahkeb, Esq., R.M.) John Smith was charged with stealing a coat, the property of Haddon Dennis ton, of the value of L2 ss.

Haddon Deniiiston, a S ent for the Mor»i,,„ Herald newspaper, identified the coat duced as Ins property. He had it i u T" possession on the 4th of May, while h e \, stopping at the Bay View Boardinghousf He had hung it up m the passage, and it there on the 4th May, at 20 minutes to T p.m. but the next morning it was RO J He had never given-any person authority b. take the coat away. Clara Alters," wife of Richard Alters d posed to having purchased the coat Vro" duced from prisoner some time in -\L He asked 7s for it, saying lie was destitute and had nothing to eat. Witness said s i,' would give him 5s for it, and if he liked to bring the money back at any time she would return the coat, lie declared the coat was his property. Detective Livingstone deposed that he know the prisoner, and had arrested him ou the sth of May, on a charge of beini; i], legally on the premises of Mr. M. A. .)onc 3 for which he was sentenced to nine mont.V( ■, hard labor, and which sentence lie is ' present undergoing. This was all the evidence. Inspector Thompson stated that prisoner had been five times previously convicted of larceny, and twice for vagrancy, and; had been imprisoned for 25 months since th* 27th May, 1875. His Worship sentenced the prisoner to two months' imprisonment. A number of civil cases constituted the rest of the business.