SUPREME COURT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13942, 30 June 1909, Page 6

SUPREME COURT.

ALLEGED MURDER. Per Press Association. NAPIER, June 29. At the Supreme Court this morning, before Mr Justice Chapman, Alice Maud Shepherd, aged 27, and John Cline, aged 2f5. were charged with the murder of the infant cnild of tin*, temale accused .--t A\ui*dvill«» mi <>c about May 12th, 1900. Both ;immis< d pleaded not guilty, ami were dffi-ii'k-.i. His Honour refused an applicatn-ii for a separate trial i.f the male accused. The evidence went to show that the woman, who was a domestic servant at Mangatoro, Woodville, accompanied by Cline, who was a roadman in the employ of the Weber County Council, took rooms at a hotel, and the woman is believed to have given birth to a child. The landlady ot the hotel saw the man going into the woman's room, and ordered them away. They shifted to a boardinghouse, and afterwards returned to Mangatoro. A boy who was fishing for eels in a creek at Woodville on iVlay 31st found a game bag containing the dead body of an infant and other things, and weighted with stones. It was deposed that the male accused had purchased this bag in Woodville. When the child's body was examined it was found that there was a piece of twine tied tightly round the neck. The Crown Prosecutor said lie was informed that the string was not taken off the body. His Honour: Well, it ought to have been. Dr Rawson deposed that the body was that ot a fully-developed manchild. He was of opinion that the child had been l*orn alive, and that the cause of death had been strangulation. ! The evidence was not concluded when the Court adjourned for the day. LICENSING CASES. DUNEDIN, June 29. At the Supreme Court tin's morning, 3lr Justice Williams heard argument

upon a motion for a writ of mandamus ordering the Awarua Licensing Committee to grant a license to George Dempster, licensee for the AYaikiwi Hotel, or in the alternative to order tile Committor in hear ami determine Dempster's application. .At the annual meeting in JWB the Committee granted tweive licenses, one, of which was at "Woodlands. By the alteration of the boundaries, "Woodlands became included in the Mataura district, where no-license obtains, and at the annual meeting of the Awarua Committee on June Tth, 1009, D';inpstei applied for a license for the Waikiwi Hotel in Awarua district, which iie Committee refused on ihe ground th.it they had no jurisdiction to gran* s ith application, so the plaintiff prnyed tine a mandamus might be issued. After Mr Neave had been heard in ;ip;iorfc, the Judge, without cal'ing on Mr A. S. Adams, dismissed the motion with costs.

Mr Justice Williams, on :ippe-d, quashed the conviction wherein Albert Bond was convicted by the Magistrate for giving an order for liquor intended to be taken into the licensing district of Oamaru, without giving the person to whom the order was given, a statement in writing of his name a .id address. Owing to the alteration of ihe boundaries of the Oamaru district, which now includes part- of "Waikouaiti, the Judge held that it was not a district in which no-license existed at the time of the conviction. His Honour snid that when licenses ceased to exist then and then only, do section 146 and section 147 under which Bond was convicted, have any operation. If nolicense is carried in November in a district, the licenses .'n the district expire at the end of June in consequence, and it is then that sections 146 nnd 147 come into force in /that district.