SUPREME COURT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6267, 17 June 1898, Page 1

SUPREME COURT.

■* • ♦ [Pur Pr„r_ Association.! Wellington, june.ie. Eobert Hickling, charged with stealing a quantity of tools, and timber was convicted of receiving property; knowing it to have been stolen, and was remanded for sentence. TIMARU, June 16. At the Snpreme Court, Timothy Cronin, a bankrupt licensee, pleaded guilty to failing to keep proper bookr, and was found not guilty on a charge of incurring debts improperly. He was sentenced to one month's imprisonment on the first charge. At tbe'close of the day, accused's counsel requested a reconsideration of- the sentence. Ho said that his client had been advised to plead guilty in consequence of a remark by his Honor on the previous day that if tradei-3 did not take notice of his warnings about keeping books, he would have to do what he had not done yet, send them to gaol on a conviction. He (counsel) took it that this warning was meant to apply to the future, and not to the past, and therefore his client pleaded guilty, and he called no evidence as to character, to save time. His Honor consented to the application, and after some evidence as to character had been heard, withdrew the sentence and ordered Cronin to come up when called on. A youth, charged with stealing four lambs atTemuka, was found not guilty. An old settler at Rangitata Island was found guilty of stealing two sheep from his neighbours for mutton, and was sentenced to six months' 'imprisonment. The case of tbe Police v. Cronin, an appeal from the Stipendiary Magistrate's decision on the question of a second bar, occupied a few minutes. Mr Justice Denniston held that in the definition of " public bar " in the Act of ISSI the words "open immediately on" any street, _.c, mean that a person may be able to step out of the street into the bar, no passage intervening, and there being a passage in this case he dismissed the appeal without calling on the respondent. There was an unusual amount of '• challenging " of jurors by the defence and the Crown during the session, several cases having to wait some time to get complete juries, and his Honor remarked that the system of peremptory challenges was greatly abused in this colony. INVERCARGILL, June 10. At the Supreme Court to-day, Thomas Nicholls pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent assault on a girl twelve years of age at Orepuki, and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, Mr Justice Pennefather refusing an application for probation. Thomas Fitzpatrick was found guilty of indecent exposure, and was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment with hard labour. In the case of Gorton, charged with misrepresenting the age of his intended wife to the Registrar," the jury were unable to agree, and were ordered to be locked up till l'.io a.m.