APPEAL CASE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 8 September 1908, Page 2

APPEAL CASE.

McFADYEN v. WIi\ETI

This was an appeal fTom the decision of R. L. Stanford, Esq., S.M., on 10th July, 1908, in the action in the Magistrate's Court, in which Thomas McFadyen, of Wanganui, settler (plaintiff) sued Wineti, of Koimiti, aboriginal native (defendant) for 30 totara posts of the value of £4 10s, the property of the plaintiff taken by the defendant on 16rh February, 1908. Plaintiff claimed the posts because he cut them from a totara log which he stated he found in the bed of the Wanganui River. Defendant claimed the log which b.9 had found and marked two years previously with his initials. Defendant had removed the posts. The magistrate, after hearing evidence, had given judgment for ihe defendant with costs. Against this decision the plaintiff appealed. Mr Hutton appeared for the appellant (McFadyen) and Mr Treadwell for the respondent.(Wineti). The applicant appeals on the ground that the magistrate's decision was erroneous in point of law, in holding (1) That the act of defendant in cutting his initials on a log stranded on the foreshore of the river alone gave him a possessory title to such log; (2) That the S'ct of. the defendant in doing nothing further on the sait^og; for two years after cutting his initials on it did not amount to an abandonment of anvsuch possesory title; and (3 That the "plaintiff did not acquire a po&sessorv title in the posts cut by him from the said log. After hearing argument at rome length on the law points raised by counsel His Honour reserved his decision.