AUCKLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2672, 31 May 1905, Page 33

AUCKLAND.

A sensation was caused in the Supreme Court by a life sentence being imposed by Mr Justice Edwards on Victor Henry Simmonds, a sailor, 20 years of age, who pleaded " Guilty " to two charges of having committed unnatural offences. The> Judge, addressing the prisoner, said: This is one of the most awful offences that lias ever come under my notice. You are absolutely unfit to be at large or to live. A very short time ago you would have been stamped out of existence. So far as lam concerned, you shall never again have a chance of being a destroyar of young innocents. The sentence is hard labour for' the term of your natural life. The prisoner seemed surprised, and was heard to remark to Detective M'Mahon: "Your light -will be put out before long." No official notice was- taken of the threat. At the Police Court Percy "Whifctel, alias De Coursey, alias Earl of Northesk, was committed for trial on live charges of forging cheques for sums of £250, £40, £140, £1, and £100 respectively. In each case the witnesses stated that the accused introduced himself as Captain De Ccursey. He however, signed cheques " Rednor" explaining that De Coursey was his family name. The cheques alleged to have been forged amounted to £531 in all. Only one, that for £1, was alleged to have been cashed. Alexander M'lntyre, a sailor, was arrested an r l charged with assaulting Thomas Green, one of the crew of the recently-wrecked barque Neptune, causing actual bodily harm. Green alleges that M'lntyre, incensed at being turned out of the shipping office, returned, and rushed at him with a,n open clasp knife. Green grasped M'lntyre's right hand, but it alleged that the latter changed the knife into his left hand, and then stabbed Green under the left eye, inflicting a small wound which necessitated his treatment at the hospital. At the inquest held on John Hall, an upholsterer, agßd 61, who arrived at Auckland from Sydney recently^ and died rather suddenly, the surgical evidence showed that death was due to pressure on the brain, caused by a clot of blood, and a verdict was given accordingly. ,