RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Colonist, Volume XIII, Issue 1300, 11 March 1870, Page 3

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

(Before J. Shahp, Esq., R.M.)

On Wednesday, John Fielding, remanded from last Monday, was charged with maliciously stabbing James Hopewell, a passenger by the barque Alphington, the accused being a seaman on board that vessel. From the evidence, it would appear that the parties had been drinking rather freely on Saturday, as the complainant stated that lie went on shore in the afternoon of that day and met the prisoner; that they went to a public house and drank together, and that he left the house by the back way in company with the steward, Bray, with whom he was talking when ha saw the prisoner come out of the public hoiiße and shortly afterwards without any quarrel whatever, he felt, a cut in the left side. . By the evidence of Eichard Henry Bray, it appeared that the stabbing occurred about eleven o'clock at night, after they had left Adam's public house, and that it was preceded by a fight between the prosecutor and prisoner, which he tried to prevent, calling upon Jonas:,Tanner and another to assist him. He then " saw something glitter m prisoner's hand" as he made a downward thrust with his hand at Hopewell, and then ran away. The medical officer at the Nelson Hospital, Dr. Farrell, deponed to having found a woupd in the left side of Hopewell, two and a-half inches: deep, inflicted by a sharp instrument which had struck on a rib, otherwise he had no doubt it woqld have been fatal. The prosecutor was now out of danger. The prisoner declined to ask any questions, and. was committed for trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court/.