CHRISTCHURCH SUPREME COURT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7962, 13 February 1906, Page 5

CHRISTCHURCH SUPREME COURT.

REMARKS BY THE JUDGE. CHRISTCHURCH, February 12. The criminal sittings of the Supreme Court opened to-day. The Judge, iu his Charge to the jury, which was shore, referred incidentally to a charge of incest against a hoy of 17 years. His Honour said such cases were traceable wholly to the senseless prudery, by which child"eu were guarded from any knowledge of their physical and mental organisation. In a great many cases lack of parental control was largely the cause of undue precocity and familiarity among children, and reluctance to inform them of the elemeutary facts of their being resulted in such cases as that before him. Iu every case of violent sexual crime that came before the Courts, the origin was found in the state of ignorance, which existed, and which would have been considerably diminished by proper intellectual guidance. The Grand Jury found true bills in every case. Arthur Henry Woolston, who came up for sentence on a charge of entering a dwelling with the intent to commit a crime, and causing actual bodily barm, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Henry Marslen, who had pleaded guilty in the lower Court to a Charge of breaking, entering and theft, tfas sentenced to two years' imprisonment. In the case of William John Kinley, charged with assault with intent, at Kaikoura, the jury found a verdict of not guilty, after two hours' retirement, and the prisoner wab discharged. The case had been tried nt a previous session, when the jury disagreed.