NEW ZEALAND NEWS ITEMS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3084, 23 April 1913, Page 48

NEW ZEALAND NEWS ITEMS.

AUCKLAND. A young woman when in the Mount Eden district on the evening of the 12th was waylaid by a stranger, who came suddenly upon her and dealt her a violent blow on the head, sending her to the footpath. Fortunately others in the vicinity heard her screams, and ran to her assistance, her assailant making off. ihe young woman soon recovered, and was taken home. This is not the first case of the kind reported recently. In the Supmere Court Judge Sim sentenced Frank Edwards, alias Hicks, found guilty of horse-stealing at Opotiki, to one year s imprisonment, and declared him a habitual criminal. The prisoner had a very bad record. Harold Gladstone Brown was charged at the Police Court to-day with the murder of Manual Santos. A remand was granted at the request of the police inspector, who said the charge would be reduced to manslaughter. POVERTY BAY. Leslie Steele, licensee of the West Shore Hotel, was on the 15th fined £5 and costs for serving a Native with liquor for consumption off the premises. The Magistrate further ordered the license to be endorsed, defendant having personally committed the offence. WELLINGTON. David Irwin pleaded “Guilty” in court to the theft of fur goods, valued at £l3, from a local shop. Irwin was coming out of the shop early this morning, when a constable caught him with the goods in his possession. A ballot of the waterside workers in Wellington favoured by 756 votes to 58 a proposal to regulate the hours during which engagements should be made, requiring all labour to be engaged before 10 a.m. and 3 p.rn., so that the men unsuccessful in the quest for work might look elsewhere instead of waiting indefinitely about the wharves.

At the Supreme Court on the 19th David Irwin, charged with breaking and entering, was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, and declared a habitual criminal. Edward Raffels Bentley, charged with being armed at night, with intent to break and enter, was ordered to be detained in prison for two years for reformative treatment.

The Public Works Department has accepted the tender of Mr A. Latham, of Gore, for the erection of a police station at Mataura. The amount of the tender is £760.

W. Bennet, a fireman on the steamer Essex, attempted to commit suicide on the 21st by cutting his throat with a razor. Bennett went on board when the second engineer was paying the men, and demanded that lie should be paid also. The engineer refused, as Bennett bad been ashore without leave. It is alleged that Bennett then picked up a razor and threatened to kill the engineer, but instead he gashed his own throat. He was taken to the hospital, but his wounds are not regarded as serious. CANTERBURY. The South Canterbury Charitable Aid Board has had a new building erected in brick on the outskirts of the borough near the Talbot Hospital for Old People, and the inmates of the old home shifted on the 14th. The old building was composed of wood, and part of it formed the first public school in Timaru. This property, which is near the middle of the town, will be sold to help to pay for the new one. The Hospital Board has decided to spend £l5O in procuring up-to-date X-ray instruments. The death is announced of Mr Robert Buchanan, ironfounder, who came to Christchurch in 1870. He was a steady advocate of the encouragement of local industries, and was one of the founders of the Canterbury Industrial Association, of which he was president in 1910. He was chairman of the Working Exhibits Committee at the International Exhibition. At Ashburton, on the 18th, Nellie Allman was fined £ls and costs on a charge of allowing her house to be used as a place of resort for the consumption of liquor in the Ashburton no-license district. SOUTHLAND. A married woman named Dixon, the wife of a Nightcaps miner, was on the 21st committed for trial on a charge of uttering a counterfeit half-sovereign. Evidence was given alleging that the accused had tendered a gilded sixpence as a halfsovereign at two shops at Nightcaps at Christmas and New Year. The accused reserved her defence.