COURTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12548, 11 July 1905, Page 5

COURTS.

Per Press Association

AUCKLAND, July 10. Dr. Orpen, charged with having unlawfully used an instrument and other means to procure a miscarriage on a woman on June 21st, was further remanded to-day. The principal witness j: stil! unable to appear. On leaving j tho Court, accused was served with an information on a charge of performing ■an illegal operation on a married woman on April 24. CHRISTCHURCH, July 10. | At tho Lyttelton Court, Andrew Bloom, master of the schooner Lily, was fined £1, with costs, for having on May 25 proceeded to sea without having entered into an agreement as required by law with John Lester, one of tho crew. Captain Bloom stated that Lester asked if he might work his passago from Greymouth to Lyttelton. This was agreed to, but the man was of little use as he was not a seaman. On arrival at LytteKon, witness gave Lester £1, and the latter laid a complaint at the Customs office that witness had not put him on the vessel's articles. Witness had omitted to do thiw through inadvertence. T©n men were charged at the Police Court to-day in connection with the street riot on Saturday night, and were remanded till Friday on bail, which was fixed at £20 to £25. The charges ranged from resisting, interfering, and inciting to resisting and assaulting the police. WELLINGTON, Julylo. A motion for a new trial in the case of Rex v. Allandale and Dennett, is being argued in the Appeal Court this morning, before the Chief Justice and Judges Williams, Edwards, and --Cooper. In this case the prisoners were recently convicted at Christchurch of robbery at the Amberley railway station in April last, Allandale being sentenced to ten years and Dennett to sevefc years' imprisonment. They now move for a new trial on the ground that the ver- , diet was against the weight 6f, evidence. Both prisoners appeared in person in support of the motion, and Mr. Stringer is opposing on behalf of the Crown. Dennett first addressed the Court, submitting that the case against him rested entirely on circumstantial evidence of his identity with one of the persons concerned in the robbery in question, and that this evidence was not sufficient to justify his conviction. Allandale followed, opening his address with the statement that the verdict against him was the outcome of prejudice created by sensational newspaper reports, and was not warranted by the evidence put before the jury. The prisoner examined the evidence in detail, and submitted that it was altogether insufficient to justify a verdict of guilty. Tho address of the prisoner Allandale in support of his application to the Court of Appeal for a new. trial occuj pied some two and ,a half hours. Mr. J Stringer, opposing the application on behalf of the Crofrn, submitted that the case was eminently one for a jury. Ij was no doubt a case of -purely circumstantial evidence, but the cumulative force of the whole of the evidence was very great. The verdict was strictly in accordance with the weight of evidence, if the jury believed witnesses for the Crown, and that was a matter entirely for them. The prisoners having both spoken in reply, the ■Court reserved judgment, intimating that it would probably be delivered- on Thursday morning. Hugh Georgo j McLiskey, aged 2C years, came to-day, before Mr. Justice Cooper ioi' sentence, having pleaded guilty to the theft of postal packets at Ohirigaitiv Counsel asked for probation. His Hbpbr refused this. He said it was impossible to contemplate tho result that might arise from acts of dishonest postal officials. It was his W'©ll-considered opinion that in no case whero a post office official was convicted of stealing letters should the provisions of the Probation Act be extended. Prisoner would be sentenced to twelve month?' hard labour.