RESIDENT MAGISTRATE COURT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 519, 19 June 1869, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE COURT.

Fbiday, Jtmn IS. (Before J. G-ilcs, Esq., E.M.)

Francis Cook and Andrew Corrigan were each fined 20s for having been drunk. Corrigan had been called as a witness at the inquest held on the fire at the Albion Hotel. Although apparently sober enough, having given an incoherent answer to the first question put to him. his evidence was dispensed with. Cook, who was in the room, offered himself as a witness, but, when asked what he had to say, he was evidently so drunk as to be incapable of distinct thought or speech. Both were ordered into custody by the Sergeant of Police, and, when before the Magistrate, were severely admonished for their conduct in appearing as they did before the jury and coroner.

Mary Gibson was charged with being drunk and resisting the police. Previous charges of drunkenness having been proved, she was fined 20s and ordered to he imprisoned for seven days.

SERYANT-GAUSM. Thomas Field was charged by Amelia Malaney with assaulting her by striking her on the shoulders with a whip. The complainant'a statement was that she was in the service of Mr Field. On Saturday morning, he asked for some water. She told him there was none in the house. He told her to get some. She asked him to show her the place where it was to be got. lie did so, but " the missus " had told her previously not to take water from that place, and she said so. He told her she was " a dirty cracked thing." She replied that she was no such thiug, when he raised a whip loaded with lead, and struck her on the shoulders. She got excited, and he ordered her out of the house.

la cross-examination hy the defendant, the complainant admitted that on one occasion she " had turned round to Mrs Field " and told her that she was " a perfect cure." That was when she was asked to do some work to which she objected. She also had told Mrs Field that she (Mrs Field) was " a beauty." She had also told the defendant that she would " let him see that there were better gentlenen than he in the Buller." She had certainly told him he was a fool; and she believed he was. She had come to the defendant from Nelson, having been engaged by Capt. M'Grillivray, and she did not deny that, having come without more clothes " than she stood up in " she had received from Mrs Field dresses, a night dress, and other under-cloth-

iug. She had only beeu a week in the defendant's employ, and the defendant had not refused" to give her her wnp;e3.

The defendant's statement was that, during the week of her service, after arriving from Nelson,the complainant's conduct was of such an extraordinary character that he feared she was deranged. Her conduct latterly became so bad and dangerous that he was determined she should leave the house. On the morning in question lie told her to do so, but she replied that " it would not suit her purpose to leave for three or four weeks, or until she could pay her passage back to Nelson." The story about the whip was a pure fabrication. "While speaking crossly to her, telling her to leave, there was a small whip lying on the iloor. He took it up and placed it on the chair, and, as he did so, she said " Oh, you mean to take a whip to mo, do you r" to which he replied that there was at least some method in her madness. After being told to leave she went into Mrs Field's room, and, in a defiant way, laughed at her. On her being discharged ho expected to receive a summons for wnges, winch he was willing to pay, but he was astounded at being charged with assault. He called, in corroboration of his statement, his son, a boy of ten years of age, who stated that the only whip in the house was a little one, that it was never used against the defendant, and that immediately after the time when she said it was used she was laughing and calling his father a fool and an ass.

The Magistrate said that, of course, however much the complainant might have been in fault, he would have considered tho assault described by her unjustifiable, but he could not believe that part of her evidence; and by her own admissions, she had used abusive and provoking language perfectly unjustifiable from a person in her position. Ho dismissed the case.