ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2969, 9 May 1896, Page 4

ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

Chris and Archie Thompson, father and sou, were drowned while fishing off Pohara beach,Takaka, through their boat being accidentally upset. Mrs Medhurst, while driving from Woodend to Kaiapoi, was thrown out of her trap, picked up insensible, and died in a few hours. At Dunedin a young man named Michael Cato, alias Lord Cato and Lord Seaton, was committed for trial for obtaining jewellery from two jewellers by false pretences. He gave out to the jewellers that he received remittances through Bishop Neville, and that the jewellery was intended as a present to Mrs Neville. As a matter of fact he is the son of a Birkenhead stevedore, and had been befriended and helped by Bishop Neville, who had given him small sums of money. One of the rings was given to an actress, who knew him as Lord Cato, and another to a barmaid. At Waimate on Thursday Patrick Hanley was charged with using indecent language and disturbing a public meeting at Glenavy on the 28th April last. By permission of the Court the charge of indecent language was withdrawn, and J. Johnston was charged jointly with Hanley for the latter offence. Witnesses were ordered out of court. The following witnesses were examined : William Williams, Albert Davis, P. J. Murphy, and W, Sievwright. The evidence went to show that at Major Steward’s meeting at Glenavy a disturbance occurred, and that defendants took part in it. The door of the school was damaged and a window broken. Defendants were slightly under the influence of liquor. The meeting was stopped for about twenty minutes by the disturbance. The Bench dismissed the case. The Eltham railway station was broken open early on Wednesday morning and looted. The thieves entered by forcing the door. The safe was then blown open by some explosive, and £IOO in cash stolen. At 7 a.tn. the empty cash box was found broken open, and this was the first known of the robbery, though it was reported that about 2 a.m. a noise was heard which is now supposed to have been an explosion. Mr Searl, a publican at Bketahuna, has abandoned his appeal against the decision of Mr F. Hutchison, S.M., fining him £65 for selling liquor at the recent show and ram fair. He says that other hotelkeepers and Agricultural Societies refused to assist him, and he will not make himself a tool for others. At Westport the carpenter of the barque Cynosure was remanded on a charge of stabbing a coal miner named Scoble in a hotel.