CHRISTCHURCH SUPREME COURT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3048, 19 November 1908, Page 5

CHRISTCHURCH SUPREME COURT.

By Telegraph—Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, November .18. The Supreme Court criminal sittings opened to-day. His Honor Mr Justice Denniston, in charging the grand jury, said the calendar was fairly large, there being 19 charges against eleven persons. He was sorry to say that out of the eleven persons to be tried, no fewer than six were charged with offences of varying degrees of enormity against children, mostly very young children. With these exceptions the calendar was light. Edward Potts, aged 36, and Frederick Creager, aged 20, both recently from Australia, where Creager had been twicejconvicted, were sentenced —Creager to five years' imprisonment, and Potts to two years' for theft. Edward Kerr, aged 26, for breaking and entering, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. .Thomas Jackson Smith was sen tenced to three years' imprisonment for robbery from the person. An elderly man named Alexander Johnson was convicted of indecently assaulting a child of five, sentence being deferred. Edgar Gustave Marck was indicted for that on October Ist he stole a horse, gig and set of harness of the value of £4l 9s, the property of Robert Forbes. He was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and was declared to be a habitual criminal, his record being a very bad one.