NEW ZEALAND

South Canterbury Times, Issue 4980, 12 April 1889, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND

(By Telegraph.) WELLINGTON, April 11. At the Hesident Magistrates Court to-day Owen McArdle, secretary of the Junction Brewery Company, was charged before the Resident Magistrate with having neglected to make a true and exact entry of nine hogsheads of beer sold on the 30th October last. The company was charged with a similar offence under a separate information. In giving judgment Mr Robinson, Resident Magistrate, said that there was a discrepancy in the evidence given for the defence, and too much reliance could not be placed on it. He fixed the penalty at £SO on each information. In the case against the company he allowed £3 3s solicitor’s fee and 7s costs of court, and in the case against McArdle 7s costs of court. The conviction against the company includes by the statute the forfeiture of all the beer in the brewery at the date when the alleged fraud was committed, and also all the plant and utensils used in the manufacture of snob beer. The same defendants were then further charged, that they did on the 30th November, 1888, neglect to cancel two stamps upon two casks containing two hogsheads of beer. Fines amounting to £4O and costs were inflicted in these cases. A still further charge against Owen McArdle of having neglected to make an entry of two hogsheads of beer sent out from the brewery on the 17th October was beard, but dismissed on the defendant satisfactorily explaining that the beer was entered, but upon the wrong date. The remaining charges against Mr Hamilton Gilmer, proprietor of the Empire Hotel, were as follows :—(1) Receiving a cask of beer from the Junction Brewery to which efcaamp was not affixed ; (2) with drawing beer from a cask to which a proper stamp had not been affixed ; (3) with being concerned in a fraudulent device not specially provided for by the Beer Duty Act, 1880, namely, receiving a cask of beer from the Junction Brewery, the stamp on which had not been properly cancelled. After hearing the evidence, the court dismissed the first two charges, and convicted on the third. The maximum penalty of £2O was imposed, and costs. GREYMOUTH, April 11, A 60oz. nugget has been found at Moonlight, on the oldest diggings on the 1 coast. This is the second largest nugget ever | found there. It was found about 40 feet above the bed of the creek. HOKITIKA, April 11. At a large public meeting held at Ross it was resolved to take steps for the Borough Council to obtain a loan, under the. Mining Act, of £20,000, secured on the borough reserves and the land of the Ross United Company, for the drainage of Ross Flat, the amount to be secured on the company’s plant. It was also resolved to ask Government to subsidise the Mount D’or Company with £15,000, and hand over to them the Mikonui water-race j provided that they complete it, and bring on to the hills 60 heads of water, selling forty heads at the same price charged by Government at Kumara, Both proposals will be laid before the Premier on his arrival. The Bnpk of New Zealand shipped 22100 z., valued at £BB4O, The fine weather has given place to steady rain, and all the sluicing claims are again well supplied with water. CHRISTCHURCH, April 11. The foreman dicker at O’Brien’s factory refuses to join the Bootmakers’ Society though they reduced the entrance fee to ono shilling unless other men in a similar position are made to join. The society consider that there are no other men ia a similar position

in town, and have decided to carry on the strike. The society offer to admit nonsociety men as members for one shilling; give them strike pay or pay their passages to other towns provided they do not work at O’Brien’s. .]

The estimated expenditure of the city council for the forthcoming year is £23,907, including an overdraft of £5691. £15,229 is to be raised by rates, and the overdraft at the end of the year will be £5200. A newspaper runner named Harry Smith committed suicide by taking aconite after a disagreement with a woman with whom he lived. At the inquest held this evening a verdict “Took poison while temporarily insane ” was returned.

DUNEDIN, April 11,

The Hon. R. Oliver, as chairman of the Fine Arts Committee of the Exhibition, has forwarded a memorial to the Colonial Secretary, urging that Government should take action towards securing a collection of pictures by great artists. Ho concludes by saying that Government would be performing one of its highest and noblest functions by undertaking the entire charge of the proposed British loan collection, and thereby raising the taste and widening the mental horizon of the citizens of Wow Zealand. The directors have confirmed the appointment of Mr D, H. Hastings.