A Brutal Brother.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5029, 10 June 1889, Page 3

A Brutal Brother.

A quarrel between a brother and a eiator formed the subject of a civil action in the Wellington Supreme Court last week. The case was one in which Maria Long Bath, spinster, sought to recover £2OO damages from her brother, Charles Bath, a storekeeper at Karori, for an assault alleged to have been' committed upon her on the oth of April last. The suit was heard before the Chief Justice and a jury. The plaintiff, says the Post, was examined at some length. She deposed that she had been keeping house for her brother for some time, but in consequence of his conduct with a woman who sometimes slept on the premises, she had given him notice. Her brother asked her to stay on, but she declined, andd a dispute ensued as to the wages she was entitled to. He then struck heron the face with his fist several times, and she was badly hurt. One of her teeth was knocked out. her face bruised, and her ears injured so much that she could not hear distinctly. She then wont to a neighbor’s house and had her injuries attended to, and afterwards she went into town and stayed with her other brother, at whoso house she was attended by Hr Cahill. A witnessj examined for plaintiff, stated on oath that while he was at work in the defendant’s bakehouse he heard the defendant's adopted son call out, ‘ Don’t hit her, dad.’ Defendant was in the witness box for some time. He denied the allegations of his sister as to the committal of an assault, espial ing ] that in consequence of the aspersions which his sister had cast upon the character of n respectable married woman lie had ordered her out of the house, and that she had tripped and fallen down the stairs, injuring her face and head upon an upright. The defendant’s adopted son (a boy of about 14) and two employees corroborated the statement of the defendant that no assault had been committed. The jury brought in a verdict for £2O.