SUPREME COURT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14215, 3 June 1910, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

SITTINGS IX TIMAHI". THIRD DAY. (Before His Honour Mr Justeo Sim.l ALLEGED FALSE PRETENCES. The bearing of the charge of false pretences against Mrs Margaret Johnston., in respect of a claim for insurance, was continued at the Supreme Court yi'sterday morning. Further witnesses mr the defence were called by Mr Walter Shaw. Before proceeding waiting jurors were discharged from further attend-

| ance. 1 I The accused, giving evidence on her ' ' own behalf, said that the photo of her ; daughter Lily, the wicker chair, and : three pillows were the only articles in , Court that had been in her house at i Waimataitai. On October 20th she sent a case containing jam and clothes : to her daughter at Ngapara. She had bought three chairs, a round table, a : duchesse, and a kitchen table from Mrs i O'Brien, and the latter had given her a teapot and a lamp (produced). The : la nip in Court was in the house., and so _ also were other ancles (named). The i blankets in Court had never been in ; the house, and the quilt in Court had belonged to Mrs. Manning. By the tire witness lost £27 3s 4d in money, and several articles of jewellery. A few days after the iire her daughter Maud wrote out a list of the articles destroy- : ed, and witness remembered Mr Home : reading it out to her. None of the j articles saved were included in the list. j When she discovered the outbreak she j went for Mr. Brown. She had had two previous fires, one about three years ago in a house site had rented to a I man, and one some time prior to that. j Witness had paid £3 17s Gd to Mrs | O'Brien for the latter's furniture, as | she had asked witness to buy it. She j received a receipt for the money. I Witness had searched the debris after i the lire, but found little of value. ; To Mr White: Had given evidence at ! the Coroner's inquiry into the cause of ; the lire, when she said that before goi ing to bed she left some lire irons on j the kitchen range. A van going past i at about 3 o'clock in the morning I wakened her up once, but going to sleep again, she was disturbed soon ' after by people talking. When she got i up to see who these were she found ! the work-room full of smoke, so she ran 1 out of the hack door, but there was no ! smoke in the passage or in the kitchen. : After she had summoned Mr Brown she dragged out a sewing machine and a ; duchesse chest. The money that was lost was made up of presents from her children, and payments for work. Wit- : ness brought about £2OO worth of . furniture and stock to Timaru. Mr 11. : S. Russell's evidence in the box on the | previous day was partly untrue, as she : had never asked ~i'or help from the Charitable Aid Board. One picture destroyed in the fire was worth £4O, ■ but it was not in the insurance proposal. The teapot in Court had first j come into her possession four years . ago, and just eighteen months ago she ! gave it to Mrs Manning. It had never belonged to Mrs 0 'Brien. Re-examined by Mx Shaw: Did not take Mrs O'Brien's furniture to her house until a couple of months after she had bought it. Through her first fare she lost £SOO, and the insurance ; vas only £SO. This was at Ivurow, and ; ..wo ot her children were burnt in it. Robert Hamilton Ferguson of TiI mam, jeweller, said that strong heat | would cause money or jewellery to melt ; and ii it fell it would scatter'in pieces' j and assume a black anpearance. similar j to the colour of charcoal. Poor n-old j melted very easily. He thought that : the heat possible in the present case : would melt coins. \ , Evelyn Black, daughter of one of the : iormer witnesses, said that she had seen : all the articles in Court at Mrs Manj nmgs place at Ngapara, the blankets, '. the quilt, the teapot and the chair. : I To Mr }\ kite: Witness had never ! ; seen the lamp in Court, before. She : I had taken particular notice of the : ; blankets because she had once carried ; ; them from the station, and she had also i i nf,?M 2. th , C , bed of Mrs Manning's i J children Site did not know how many j I teapots Mrs Maiming had, or what I Kmu she was using now. The teapot I | in Court was the one that belonged to '' : Mrs. Manning, because it was like it I On stepping down from the box, wit- I ness famted, and had to be carried out ot Court. Lily Johnston, daughter of the accused, said that she had seen all the articles m Court at her sister's, Mrs t Manning's. She recognised her own photo, her mother having sent it down ; to her after she had written for it. ; lo Mr White: Was positive that the blankets m Court had been in Mrs i Manning's place, in fact she had sleot under them. She had not told Detec- | tive Fahey that she had not received i | any pictures from her mother. She ; admitted having signed a statement in ' j the detective's book, but it had not | i been read over to her. The statement ! . read over to her was not the one she ' 1 had made. [ This concluded the evidence for the i j defence, and Mr White obtained per- '■ I mission to r ec- a ll three witnesses for I j the Crown. I ; Frederick Home, said that he iden- I ! tined the declaration before him. with ' ; the exception of one sheet, as tho one prepared by Maud Johnston. An oil planting had been struck out because it was not included in the insurance policy. Detective Fahey said he had heard : the evidoence given by Mrs Manuin- , on the previous day, repudiating a I i s t?' i i:i ne " nt sl1 " kn f l made to him. ° In ; all Mrs Manning had made four state- ■ ments, and after they bad been read VI 1 ' , ', " lle si yncd them. Lilv j Johnston had also made a statement to witness, and had sinned it, after; | having it read over to her. ! ; To Mr Shaw: Miss Johnston denied ! that any case came to her from her ■ ; mother. I Mr Shaw then addressed the Court i on belialf of the defence. If there • was no false declaration, he said, ' then there was no attenmt to defraud '. Ihe prosecution brouulit evidence to ' slww that some of the goods included in the claim were not destroyed by . tire, and the defence brought evidence to show that the goods produced in i Court had with a few exceotions. never j been in the Jicus.-. Mr .Shaw proceed- ' ed to conirjaro. the evidence for both sides regarding various articles, as to '. whether they had or had not been in ; tile house, and whether they had been claimed for as lost in the fire. It was admitted that certain articles had j been sent away, but there were not ! iucludoed in the claim. There being ' ill-feeling between them, the jury ! would know what value to attach to Mr O'Brien's statement that accused offered him. £lO to burn the house down. 'There was no evidence that anything had been removed from the house except two cases, and the con- ■ tents of these were accounted for. Counsel submitted that the conduct of accused all through was of an innocent woman, and that her declaration was true in every respect. If the jury look- . ed back on the history of this case, : and the life of accused from the time , of her arrival in Timaru, and her po- , sition in the dock that day, the jury must be moved with feelings of compassion and pity. However the defence did not ask for compassion and _ pity but for justice. They asked that the character of the accused, that for , months past had been tainted by the _ ■ shadow of crime, be vindicated by their • ', judgment that day. ! Mr J. W. While, in his reply, point- ' ed out that the prosecution had no mo- i ( live whatever, while witnesses for the ; d.'fence had considerable motives. He ] commented on the assertions that ac- ' , cused had so much confectionery in the ,

i In.us,. (£35 woithi iliough not in busi- ! »''-s: and that she had so much other j property. iuclmlium. £l'7 in cash, . though applying tor aid as a clostitut-r- ---! person. Ho denied the alleged illj levliug tin the pan. of O'Brien, criticised the defence regarding the possesion <>f ilip money, "an.-l pointed out other inconsistencies. He asked the jury f> believe Detective Fahe\\ rather i than members of the family, who con- , tradtcted him regarding " statements : made awl signed by them. The cvi- ■ deiiro for tlip. defence, he .said was iu- ; consistent, because it was siivon with ' the intent of getting the accused off •in any way they could. The accused j was entitled to the benefit of a roasoit- ! able doubt, hut the jury should not j conjure tip a doubt to relieve them- | selves of a solemn duty; and they j ought not to allow sympathy for the accused, because she was a woman, inI t*rfore between right and wrong. I His Honour, in summing up. said | that accused was charged with "bavins j made a. false statement for the pmr- . pose of inducing the insurance company to pay her £l5O. .and in order to justify themselves in convicting accused, it was necessary that the' jurv .should be satisfied that the statement was false, that accused knew it was I false, and that she made it for the 1 purposes of fraud. His Honour proj ceeded to refer to points in the evidence. They would see from the evi- ! deuce of J| r "Wallace how the insur- | ance was effected. It certainly seemed : to him that the reckless methods of | some agents in taking out policies was | conducive to arson. Apparently on | October 2nd Mr Wallace had inspected | a few articles., but he took Mrs Johni stem's word as to the contents of some of the cases. It appeared from the evidence that accused had been very ■ unfortunate in the matter of fires, j having lost. £SOO bv one at Kurow ! and £2OO by one at Oamaru. On this j occasion misfortune in the shape of ; lire had followed her to Timaru. The : question for the jury was whether her ; statement of lass was false in any sub- | stantial particular. The Crown sugj gested that the statement was large- ! Iv a work of imagination and that it ; was impossible for this woman to have , anything like £l5O worth of goods in I the_hou.se. Some of the jury who were ! business men would look * over the . items carefully, and probably come to ; the same conclusion. His Honour then j dealt at some length with the evii deuce regarding the identity of artij cles that had been produced, and I their whereabouts before the fire; and I specially directed the attention of the j jury to the discrepancy between the : statements given shortly after the (ire, j and the evidence in the box. and re- ; marked that if the jury ' belL-ved ; that the statement was given, thc-y i must conclude that a good deal of j perjury had been committed. The I jury must have noticed the confident way in which these women spoke of the i identity of the tea-pot. for instance : in ! fact they seemed to recognise it before j they saw it. Then if ihev heiieved j the statement of tho witness O'Brien j that Mrs Johnston offered him £lO to burn down her house, it would be ob- | vious that she would not have :mv- | thing like £l5O worth of stuff in the j house, for she should not be anxious to have a fi--e if it paused he- serious loss. And if before a fire the insured sent jiway large quantities of goods, it was obvious that it was done for some, purpose, and they must take this question into consideration. The jury retired at 3.45 p.m.. and when they returned four hours later the foreman intimated that they could not agree, and there was no prospect of agreement.

His Honour accordingly discharged the jury, and on the aoolication of Mr AAhite ordered a new trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court in Timaru. on September 6th.

Bail was allowed as before, accused in £IOO. and two sureties i'.-r £SO e-eh INTERPRETATION OP WILL. ' Charlotte Chapman and T. R. James (executors of the will of the late Evan Chapman, of Waitohi) sought an interpretation by the Court of the deceased's will. It was a friendly action. Mr Johansen, instructed' by Smithson and Raymond, appeared for the trustees, and for Mrs Chapman and Mr Rolleston, instructed by the same firm, for the children. It appears that Mr Chapman (deceased) made his will in 1884 and died without ever revising it. Bv the will the property was left in trust for investment, for tho sole use and benefit of Mrs Chapmau and for such of his children as might be living at his death. The question to be decided ivas whether Mrs Chapman took jointly with the children or whether she took a life estate, and the children in succession.

After hearing some interesting argument. His Honour said he would reserve iudgment. A TRUSTEES CASE. The Court also heard a motion under the Trustees Act, originating summons in re John \ ance. deceased, in which Andrew Wilson and another were plaintiffs and Anne Vance Wilson and others derendants. Directions were required as to the disposal of the shares of two beneficiaries in this estate, the summons having been adjourned from the last sitting and to enab,e enquiries to be made for the beneficiaries, both of whom are absent in America. As the trustees are still without definite information, the case was adjourned till the next sitting ~^ Ir Jordan appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr Rolleston for the public trustee.