AUSTRALIAN NEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22716, 31 October 1935, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

THE COMPANIES BILL CLAUSE TO BE MODIFIED SYDNEY, October 30. The clause in the Companies Bill prohibiting the canvassing for sale of shares is to be considerably modified. This was agreed to at a meeting of the State Cabinet after consultation with the various interests. The Bill, which will be introduced in Parliament in the next few days, will not prohibit canvassing for sale of shares. A canvasser, however, will not be permitted to conclude an agreement for the purchase of shares. He will be allower to leave a prospectus and a share application form, which the customer may fill in after full consideration. DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED SYDNEY, October 29. The State Cabinet commuted to life imprisonment the death sentence on Harold Ferguson for the murder of his wife. At the Criminal Court on September 16 Harold Ferguson, aged 43, a farmer, near Gosford, was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife on August 31. Evidence was given by a neighbour that Ferguson deliberately shot his wife outside the house, and threatened the life of a young man who sought to take the rifle from him. Ferguson's defence was that his wife was accidentally shot during a struggle after a dispute in which his wife threatened to leave him and take the child with her in order to live with another man. CRIMINAL ON A JURY SYDNEY, October 30. (Received Oct. 31, at 10 p.m.) During the trial at the quarter sessions of Thomas Croft and Kenneth O'Connell on a charge of conspiracy to steal £690 from John Wilson, the jury was peremptorily discharged when it was found that one of the jurymen had a criminal record. Mr Justice Markell said that while nobody desired to rake up a man's past, it was impossible to conceive that a man with 15 convictions should be allowed to try other people.