MAGISTERIAL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2737, 29 December 1881, Page 2

MAGISTERIAL.

■*>. TIMABU—THIS DAY. (Before F. LeCren and E. G. Stericker, Eeqs., J.P.’s.) DRUNK AND DISORDERLY. Richard Fox, charged with this offence, was ordered to pay £1 13s, medical expenses incurred for dressing a broken head he received somewhere while drunk. LARCENY. George Clarke was charged with stealing a silver chain, locket, and brooch, of the value of £4, the property of Mrs Gunn, from a room in the Timaru Hotel on the previous day, and pleaded not guilty. James Ogilvie stated that between one and two o’clock he saw prisoner come into his yard and look at a machine, while doing so moving about an old bag that was lying around. He went away, but came back almost immediately, and witness saw him put his hand under the bag in a way that aroused his suspicions, and when the man left the yard again witness went and found under the bag the chain, locket, and brooch produced. He pointed out the prisoner to a constable, and saw the former run away. Constable Guerin, to whom the prisoner was pointed out by last witness, stated that he followed him round Shepherd’s corner and got close to him, when the prisoner ran off and got clear away from him. About five in the evening he saw him in the Criterion Hotel, and arrested him on a charge of stealing from the Timaru Hotel the articles above enumerated, Prisoner said the constable first wanted to arrest him for being drunk, and be ran away just to show that he was a sober as the constable himself. Sergeant Cullen, who assisted to arrest the accused, stated that in reply to the charge the prisoner said “ 1 think I am guilty of that, I think I did that.” Prisoner was under the influence of drink, and asked several times what was the charge against him. Mrs Melton, licensee of the Timaru Hotel, recognised the articles produced as her daughter's, Mrs Gunn’s. The prisoner was in the bar of the hotel about ten in the morning, and later, between one and two. On the last occasion he asked if witness could put him in a room, as a policeman wanted to take him up for being drunk, but he ran out again at once. Mrs Gunn stated that she left the articles on a dressing table in her bedroom upstairs in the Hotel at eight in the morning, and next saw them in the hands of the police between one and two, when she found they had been taken away. Inspector Pender said nothing was known of the man except that he had twice been convicted of drunkenness. He had been drinking about town for a day or two past. The Bench considered the charge fully proved and sentenced the accused to one month’s imprisonment with hard labor.