CITY POLICE CASES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1418, 25 January 1879, Page 9

CITY POLICE CASES.

The following cases were disposed of j,t the City Police Court during the week :— The Nugget Case.— John Hoscroft was charged with stealing a nugget of brass, value 6d, the property of John Hand, of Kensington. — John Hand said the nugget was in his possession recently. He had not authorised anyone to take it away, nor sold it. He believed it to be pure brass. His mate, from whom he got it, told him it was such.— Kate M'Donald, a neighbour of Hand's, who cleaned out his place, saw the nugget there, and picked it up en Sunday last. Hoscroft took it out of her hand, saying he would try and make a rise out of it.— Prisoner said this witness was drunk at the time, and threw it at him. — This was the evidence fpr the larceny case ; and the prisoner was then charged with having obtained from E. H. Bailey, by false pretences, the sum of L& — E. H, Bailey said the prisoner came yesterday and produced the nugget, asking him if he bought gold. Witness weighed it, and telling him it was worth L 3, gave him a cheque for the amount. The nugge*t was not gold. It was " a beautiful deception."— Constable Lyons, who arrested prisoner, said Hoscroft denied knowing anything about it, or that he had taken it to Bailey's shop. — Prisoner, in his own defence, said he told Mr Bailey he did not know whether it was gold or not, and as Mr Bailey took it to his table, he thought he tried it before buying it.— Prisoner, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Larceny.— Alexander M'Donald and David Watson w«re found puilty of breaking into a house belonging to Edmund V. Godso, in Melville-street, and stealing therefrom 10 pairs of boots, and each sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Assadi/t.— Hugo Obermar was fined 209, with the usual alternative, for assaulting an old woman named Mary. Fleury, in Eattray-street, early on Sunday morning. The prisoner denied the charge, but the Bench found him guilty, aB two policemen had heard the prosecutriz screaming, and the accused wa3 the only pei-son naar her at the time. DAHGBROUB Playthings.— Patrick Burke, Thomas Burke, and Hugh M'lnlay, three little boys, were charged with the theft of three boxes of detonating tubes.— lnspector Mallard said the prosecution was instituted mainly with the view of ascertaining whether any carelessness was exhibited in reference to the custody of these explosives, as a boy attending theChristian Brothers' Schools had lately had some of his fingers blown off through their übo as playthings.— From the evidence it appeared that* the magazine at Anderson's Bay had been broken into, on the 12th* December, and a box containing 100 detonators abstracted. These detonators, which are dangerouß explosives used for mining purposes, were introduces by one of -the Burkes to the children at the Christian Brothers' School, the result being that a little lad named Arthur Burns had three of his finger* blown off.— The boys were discharged with a caution.

Owing to the want of room in the various schools' in Dunedin, a great number of pupils presenting themselves on Monday had to be refused admittance. In the case of one schoo at least, we know of as many as 93 being refused- ' The additions now being made to the schools will provide accommodation for four or five hundred more scholars, but even this, it is certain, will not be nearly sufficient ; and the erection of another large school in Dimedin is f therefore, a matter of pressing and urgent necessity.