RESIDENT MAGISTRATE COURT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 404, 16 November 1868, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE COURT.

Saturday, Nov. 4. (Before J. Giles, Esq., R.M.) SERIOUS CHARGE OE ASSAULT. Frederick Langmeir was charged with assaulting Henry Kopmann, and Henry Kopmann was charged with assaulting Frederick Langmeir. Mr Tyler appeared for Lang meir, and Mr Pitt for Kopmann. The parties are Germans, and the witnesses in each case were also Germans. On accoun .of their numbers aud their nationality, their evidence naturally occupied the Court a considerable part of the day. It appeared that, with several o their countrymen, the parties .and .the witnesses had been in the habit of resorting, of a Sunday evening, to the house of another countryman, Mr Schmidt. Langmeir, Henry*Kopmann, Carl Kopmann, Hartmann, Hildebrand, Gunter, Stanton, and one Rosenberg, from Charleston, happened to " drop in " together, at his house, on Sunday evening last. They were all of the " musical profession," and were avowedly harmonious in their feelings of friendship, but there seemed to have been some old grudge against Rosenberg, and it was reciprocated on his part, for he used some "insinuating language" with regard to the Kopmanns and others. The "insinuating language" consisted of calliug them " bloody loafers," and other derogatory names. He seemed to conclude that there were more of his enemies than his friends assembling in the room, and he left, but hearing himself also spoken of in a derogatory way, he returned, and protested against the epithets applied to him. By this time some of the party were becoming warm with beer, and Langmeir, although friendly with all the others, took Rosenberg's part to such an extent that Hartmann was induced to attempt to strike him. The Kopmanns interfered, and Langmeir turned upon them. He knocked down Henry, and, according to the evidence for the prosecution, he assaulted him so severely with the iron key of a harp, which he held in his fist, that the man had to appear in Court with his head covered with sticking plaster, and had been so seriously wounded that the case, when it was called upon a few days ago, had to _be adjourned. Langmeir then stripped himself of his coat, and professed a desire to dispose of the other Kopmann, but, after a row of a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, the party was dispersed. Subsequently Langmeir confessed that the " hiding " he had given Kopmann was meant for Hartmann, and he offered to make the matter up by paying expenses, and giving anIOU; but, when that was not accepted, he laid a countercharge for assault. The case set up by Mr Pitt waa that Kopmann was the assailant, and that the wounds received by him were caused by his head coming in contact with a billy and a frying-pan, when the parties were struggling together in the chimney, into which they had fallen. _ The Magistrate, in giving his decision, said the principal feature in the case was the use of an instrument the harp key —by Langmeir, and had it been used with deliberation and premeditation, he would have sent the case to a jury, buthe thought it was not so used. As it was, the assault was of an aggravated character, and he sentenced Langmeir to a week's imprisonment, and to pay £lO, as costs of the case. Failing payment, the period of imprisonment would be extended by a . month. The case against Kopmann he dismissed, without costs. In the cases of William Bracken, . charged with obtaining goods under false pretences, and Robert Mee, ( charged with vagrancy, the charges were ( dismissed. The report of these will be given to-morrow.