CHARGES Of THEFT.

Colonist, Volume XLVI, Issue 10916, 6 January 1904, Page 2

CHARGES Of THEFT.

At the Magistrate's Court yesterday morninsr, George Nicholas was charged, on the information of Joseph Saba, with having stolen the sum of £50 in bank notes from the informant, at the premises of Mr Benjamin Earl, St. Vincent street, on the 3rd inst. Sergeant Dougan represented the Police, and Mr A. C. Maginnity appeared for the accused. Sergeant Dougan said that he would ask for a remand for a few days, and Mr Maginnity offered no objection. A remand to Friday nest was accordingly granted, bail being fixed at accused in £100 and two sureties lof £50 each, or one in £100. The remarkable fact was then witnessed of the informant becoming surety for the accused, Sergeant Dougan remarking that the two men were brothers-in-law. James Chripps alias James Mad'gan was, on remand, charged with stealing the sum of £6 odd from his employer, Thomas R. Drummond,-Wan-gapeka, on the 23rd December last. Sergeant Dougan said that accused had informed him that he would plead guilty at the proper feme, therefore he asked hid Worship to intimate when he was satisfied that there was a prirtia facie case established. " Mr Drummond gave evidence that on the day in question he left home in a hurry with his wife, and the i house was left empty. Shearing was in progress, and after work stopped accused preceded witness to the house. Nest morning he found that his pocket book containing a £5 note, two or three single notes, and 12s in silver, was missing from a drawer in the bedroom, and more than one draper had been opened. Wag present when Constable Knapp searched accused, who had on him 2s only. Accused was subsequently discharged and paid £1 that was due to him, so that 22s was all the money he had. Accused was the only man about the place at the time. Witneas subsequently found that his children's money boxes had been tampered with, and money abstacted. The £5 note was on the Union Bank. Constable Knapp gave evidence that at the time of the search of accused the latter asserted several times that all the money he had was the 2s. On Boxing Day saw accused at the Wakefield sports spending money freely, and wearing an apparently new suit of clothes. Subsequently arrested accused on the Stanley Brook-Dovedale hill road, John Thomas, Wangapeka, gave evidence that he saw accused, who had gone away with Constable Knapp in the afternoon of the 24th, leaving his swag behind, at the men's hut between six and seven the same evening. Chatham White, storekeeper, stated that accused came to his store, Tadmor, on the evening of 24th December, and procured a suit of clothes, a pair of boots, a hat, and a ehirt, coming to £2 19s in all, in payment of which he tendered a £5 note, asking that the balance, £2 Is, should be deducted from his account, which stood at £4 Is Bd. The note produced (on the Union Bank) was the one received, of that he was sure, as he had no other. Being formally charged, accused pleaded "guilty to all charges," and was committed for sentence to Wei lington. The same accused, James Chripps, alias James Madigan, was then charged upon a warrant issued at' Hastings, Hawke's Bay, in January last year, charging him with, on the Bth January, 1903, stealing at Bridge Pa a cheque of the value of £36 6s, the property of Nelson Bros., of Tomoana. On the application of Sergeant Dougan, accused was remanded to Hastings. Accused has been "wanted" by the Hawkes Bay police ever since in connection with the last mentioned case, but up till now has been missing. I