SUPREME COURT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 11997, 4 September 1909, Page 6

SUPREME COURT.

Per Press Association. ;PALMERSTON NORTH; Sept. 3. After a hearing extending ovef three days, the case of Thomson ! v. Mason concluded to-day. Plaintiff claimed for rccision of a■ contract to purchase 365 acres at Mamakau, on the grounds that the boundaries had been wrongly indicated, and that there was much more bush and swamp land in the block than-he was led Jo expect; or, alternatively, for £I2OO damages. A special jury, 'after a retirement of an hour, returned,' a verdict for plpaintiff for £BOO, and costs on the highest scale Leave to apply for a new ..trial wsis granted. WELLINGTON, Sept. 3. At the Supreme Cournt to-day, a middle-aged man named Alfred Binder, a seaman, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for assaulting a shipmaster named Burns. Harry McGill was convicted of breaking and entering the Dominion Clothing Company's shop and .stealing goods therefrom. Sentence was deferred.

| Mr Justice Cooper gave judgment in the Supreme Court to-day on the. oppeal ease of Smith v. Lambert. Appellant is Superintendent of the Mercantile 'Marine, atid respondent master of the .Union -Company's*/Arahura. Lambert was charged before Mr* Biddell, SjM., with leaving' John Peebles, a.fireaian at Wellington withoutmaking provision' forhinr'under-the-Ship-ping and Seamen's Act. Peebles went into the hospital for treatment, and rejoined the ship after recovering from an operation. The Act.requires the master of a ship to deposit a sum necessary for maintenance and medical expenses. The Magistrate found for defendant, holding that it was doubtful if at the . time Peebles ; was discharged from the ship the injury from which be was suffering was such as to: wholly'incapacitate him. and that ho was not "left on shore" within the meaning of the Act. The judge upheld the Magistrate's finding, and dismissed the appeal ; with costs. It "-as, he said, only when a roan was wholly prevented from performing his work by illness that he was entitled to the benefit of the section under which the prosecution was taken.