Accidents and Offences.

Otago Witness, Issue 1476, 28 February 1880, Page 10

Accidents and Offences.

At the OamaruPolice Court on Thursday (says tha Noith Otago Times) Francis Robinson was charged with, stealing aa opossum rug and swag cont&iaiug clothes aud a silver watch, valued alt n gathev at Ll4, the property of Bernard Lamb, of Danedin. on the 27th ult. In consequence of a notice from Dunedin, the police srreßte-i him n°ar Oamarn, and ihe greater part of the property wns found on him. His account of the cate waa that ho had been stopping at the Peacock Hotel, Dunedin, and on the 27th o? last month he started for Ov-mant. While on the whnrf arranging for hi*i p9S3dij.» by tho Beautiful S^ar, ho left hia swag at tho railway Rtatiou. When the steamer was midv to sta> - fc, ho took hid things from tho parcels office to tho rai'way ("tation, paying 2d for the chargo there, and went on board. When near Oam aru he went to look for his ( things, and couldn't find them. Tho swag he is charged with stealing was on board, and there was no owner for ifc. He spoke to tbo captain, who tolil him that he was not accountable for any passenger'^ clothe, and he (tirisoner) them told the captaiu that ho would fcako the swag f>-.r which there was no owner rather than none at nil, and th« cipl.ain. lel.l lain) ho might rio so. Tho watch ho h id not neen :vt< .-ill. Ilti lwd mailo no coucdiilia at of toe manner in whiub.be Lad become possessed of tlio things be was charged with afcenliri',', ;;rid upoke of them to several people r& the Northern Hotel. The Magistrate remanded him to Dunediu, whore inquiries could be made 1 fta to tbe truth of his statement,

A man named Edward Brown, while driving a horse and dray at Falmerston on the 20th, by some means or other stumbled, and before he could recover himself, a wheel of the^ dray pasied over one of his legs, badly fraoturang it. Ha was conveyed by train to the Dunedin Hospital.

A child of Mr John Gibson, a saonmakar, rs« siding near the Harjover street railway crossing, had a narrow escape from an untimely end on Thursday afternoon last. As the 230 p.m Port Chalmers train was approaching the Hanover street crossing it was seen that James Connolly, in the Corporation employ, and John Nugent, a pojtman, were making signals to the engineer of the train to Biop, and it was then observed that a child about two years of ago was lyiDg across the line. The engineer, whose name is J. Stewart, saw the signal?, and aho the cause of them, and immediately shut off staam and applied tha brakes. Tins could not have averted the impending accident, however, as the train waa proceeding full speed, had not Connolly made an effort to save the child, and snatched it off tha line when tho engine was almost upon it. The escape was a remarkably narrow one, and Connolly's action deserves every commendation. We aro informed that the engineer did everything in his power to stop the train, and if an accident bad occurred no blame could have been attached to him.

The " clow and tedioua process of the law" is perhaps hardly an apposite quotation in reference to the case of the girl Wilson at tha Police Court, as the delays have boon unavoidable; but tho case is at last concluded. She wai found on the Town Belt nearly a mouth ago, with a child in her arms', wandering about in a state of destitution, and was brought before the Court on a charge of vagrancy, being remanded gfrom time to time till on Tuesday, when the charge against her was dismissed, and her child was s«nli to the Industrial School.