SUPREME COURT.—CRIMINAL SITTING.

Otago Witness, Issue 746, 17 March 1866, Page 4

SUPREME COURT.— CRIMINAL SITTING.

Fbidat, 9th Mabch. j (Before his Honor, Mr Justice Richmond.) His Honor took his seat at ten o'clock. EXTEXSIVE THEFT. i John Lamer was charged with stealing a quantity of drapery and haberdashery goods from the premises of Alcorn, Kerr and Co., while he was their servant. Samuel Wesley Alcorn : I am a draper, now of Hokitika, and lately carrying on business in Maclaggan street and Princes street, Dunedin. The prisoner was in my employment as a draper while I was in partnership with Mr Kerr, in Princes street, from March to August, 1865. While the prisoner was in our employ, about the Ist or 2nd August, we were taking stock, and missed an expensive Paisley shawl, valued at nine guineas. I inquired of the prisoner and all the young men in the shop, if any of them had sold it, and I was given to understand that none of them had sold it. The shawl had our trade mark on it. I have since seen a shawl which I believe to be the missing one, in the Detective Office, but my trade mark has been taken off it. I believe the shawl now shown me to be the same, but I do not swear to it. It is the same pattern, and about the same quality. When the shawl was shown to me, it was taken from a parcel which contained four table cloths which bear Hislop's private trade mark, and also a mark to which I can swear. We bought all Hislop's stopk, and there were table cloths amongst it. On the 4th December I accompanied Detective Weale to Levi's pawnbroker's shop, in Rattray street, where I saw a parcel containing a piece of gambroon and a piece of mixed tweed. We had p : eces of tweed and gambroon similar to these while the prisoner was in our employ, and it was not all sold when the prisoner left. Tney appear to have been cut off the pieces, and bear no mark. Another parcel which was produced to me at Levi's shop contained a number of articles, amongst which was a small box with a lace shawl. There is no peculiarity or mark by which I can identify the shawl, but the box bears my private mark, although it is the kind of box in which we usually kept gentlemen's pocket-bandkerchiefe. By the Court : We usually gave away boxes of this kind. Examination continued : I also recognise our private mark on a lady's evening dress, and on a piece of printed muslin. Our books show certain articles which the prisoner bought, and I believe the pair of curtains shown me to be part of them. Afterwards I went to Mr Davis's pawnbroker's shop, in Princes street. and was there shown a number of i bundles of goods. Oat of these I identify by the trade mark a pair of stays, a piece of worked insertion, a box of ribbon remnants, a piece of silk handkerchiefs, apiece of linen, 16 yards, and a number of miscellaneous goods by their pattern. At the police station I was shown a number of parcels and a chest of goods. Out of these I identify, by my private mark, a piece of green merino, a table cloth, a piece of scarlet merino which has never been opened, five Turkish towels, two cambric handkerchiefs, two pieces sewed muslin, a box of collar?, a lady's vest, a scarf, a silk handkerchief, four pieces of lace, a quantity of papers of buttons, six pieces of trimming, three nightcaps, a box containing handkerchiefs, nine table napkins, three belts, a lot of collars, two boxes of ladies' hair-pins, and a box of reels. (He also identified a number of articles in a general way by the pattern, and having had similar goods in stock while the prisoner was in his employ. One towel he identified by being a traveller's sample.) The prisoner did buy a few things both before and after he left our employ. Amongst the goods shown here to-day there are a damaged shawl and a pair of muslin curtains which the prisoner purchased while he was with us, and he bought a few pairs of socks after he left us, and some of those produced here unmarked may be the same. By the Court : We did not miss any of the goods, except the Paisley shawl. We could not miss them by any possibility, from the manner in which we kept the stock. A large part of the goods are remnants, or pieces cut off pieces which remain in our possession. I do not think the prisoner could have purchased all these goods of us without my knowing it. The custom of the establishment was that one of the young men came every morning in turn at eight o'clock, while the porter cleaned out the shop, and the others came at nine o'clock. Between eight and nine o'clock the young man in attendance had access to the whole shop, and the sole control over the stock during that time. Michael Levi and Alexander Davis, pawnbrokers in Rattray street and Princes street, proved that the various bundles of goods which had been produced in Court, were pawned with them by the prisoner in August, September, and October last, in

the name of Linton. To the witness Davis the Judge said — You are the person who applied to me the other day for therestoration of LlO which was found upon* the prisoner, because you had advanced it to him on some of these goods. There is only one case in which I could make that order, if the prisoner was committed of obtaining money by false pretences j but I tell you I think it very unlikely that the prisoner could be convicted of that offence, as it is very probable you did know how the goods were obtained. You should be the very last person to talk about another indictment being filed against the prisoner, for I tell you plainly that it you do not conduct your business in a more proper manner, you will some day get into serious trouble. The grounds of suspicion against you of receiving goods knowing them to have been stolen, are very strong ; and you need not be surprised, and I shall not be surprised, if you find yourself in that dock some day. This also applies, in some extent, to the other pawnbroker, but not so strongly as to you. Now you can stand down, and consider that you have got off very easily. Charles C. Armstrong stated that for upwards of twelve months prior to the arrest of prisoner, he rented from him a cottage in a right of- way off Maclaggan, street.

Constable Richard Quin proved the arrest of the prisoner, and finding in the prisoner's house, which had been described by the previous witness, the chest containing goods which had been produced, and also a pocket book, containing a number of pawn-tickets.

The prisoner addressed the jury, asserting that part of the goods were his own property. He purchased them as they were part of a bankrupt stock, and were being sold very cheap, and he intended to make a profit off them some day. He bought many of them through himself, in order to swell the amount of his sales. Other portions of the goods were brought by him from home, where he had been in business on his own account. He pawned no goods while he was in Alcorn, Kerr and Co.'s employ, or until he was out of work, and got short of money. He admitted, having used the name of Linton because he did not wish his own to be known.

The Judge said he had no hesitation in sending this case to the jury, as it was a case for them to determine. There waa no technical or artificial law of evidence which prevented them from convicting the prisoner on the facts proved, taking them in the light of common sense, and giving the prisoner the benefit of all rational and reasonable doubts which might occur to them.

The jury, after a short absence, found the prisoner " Guilty." This finished the criminal calander.

The London correspondent of the ""Wellington Independent " says, referring to the cable for Cook's Strait:— •' A fiae China clipper, the Weyraouth, 830 tons register, is chartered to convey, at the end of February next, your Cook Strait Telegraphic cable. If the great navigator, Captain Cook, could only pay the Strait and the adjacent settlements a visit now, and also see the submersion of a rope of iron and copper wires, which would convey his commands from one side of the Strait to the other in a few minutes, he would be rather astonished, and fancy he had made new land in some strange region or latitude beyond the confines of this little planet of ours. But be this as ie may, Mr Henley has, I am told, obtained the 'contract for making, submerging, and keeping in complete working order for a period of twelve months after being laid, a. heavy and strong cable. This cable, I understand, is already in process of manufacture at Mr Henley's Works, North Woolwich, and isto be ready for shipment on board the Weymouth by the 6th of February next, and all on board by the 20th of the same monthThe cable contracted for 13 about 49 miles in length, and allows nearly nine miles for "slack;" it consists of three distinct copper wires, each formed of seven five wires; the three-sixteenth iron wire is twisted round the usual casing to the copper wires in the usual spiral way — the outside of this iron wire being protected by " Clark's compound," one inch and seven-eighths. The cost of manufacturing it, will, I am told, be a little over L 20,000. The total cost of manufacture, freight, laying and keeping it in working order for a twelvemonth after its submersion, will not exceed L 31,000. lam glad to inform you that the Panama Company are now confident that they will be able to commence their contract, at both ends of the line, by June next. The Ruahine, daily expected, is likely to sail in February. The Kaikora in March. The steamer building in the Clyde, and the large one at Millwall, have made such extraordinary progress towards completion since I last gpoke of them, that the latter is ready for launching, and the other nearly so — and both may almost certainly be expected to leave here, or be on thdr way out, before the end of May next."

A notification in the New Zealand Government Gazette enumerates the following appointments of Inspectors in Bankruptcy under the Debtors and Creditors Act, 1865 : — Mr Rich. F. Porter, for Auckland ; Mr W. Thomeon, Canterbury ; Mr George Brodie, Otago ; and Mr Frederick Mitton, for Southland.