A BAILIFF SEIZING A CRADLE.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 140, 21 June 1870, Page 2

A BAILIFF SEIZING A CRADLE.

At the Assizes .held at Durham, Bridget Macintyre, aged thirty-one, has been charged.with: the manslaughter of George Vasey, at Willington, on the Ist of February last :— It appeared that the deceased was ai bailiff; and went to the house of the prisoner's husband to distrain for rent. An altercation then ensued between the deceased and the prisoner in reference to a.cradle in which the. prisoner's baliy was lying, and which the deceased insisted on taking; during the altercation the prisoner became exasperated and struck the deceased two blows on the head with a rolling pin and also threw a jug ; at him.. His head was afterwards se?n to be coverel with bloocj. In a few days the deceased was attacked with erysipelas and he died six days after the blows. It appeared from the evidence of Fox, who acted as the under-bailiff, the deceased man, Vassey, seized the cradle and handed it to him at the door, a policeman having taken out the baby. His Lordship: Do you distrain cradleß with babies in them ?

Witness : I do not distrain at all. His Lordship : It was quite illegal. If a man is riding oil a horse it cannot be distrained. After the witness had been further examined, His Lordship suggested that if the distress was illegal, it might be that the woman used no more force tkan necessary to rcßist it. He might as well distrain a shirt upon a person's back as a cradle with a child in it.,, Whatever a man was. using at the .time could not be seized, and reasonable resistance might be lawfully offered. It appeared from the evidence of the surgeon who made the post mortem examination that death . had been caused' by extravasation of blood on the brain,, resulting from the blow on £he head. \ .•/ The jury found, the prisoner Guilty,' with a recommendation to mercy. His Lordship,, considering the recommendation, and that the prisoner had r been for some time in prison, ordered her to find two sureties in £20 each to keep the peace for twelve months ; and ihe was discharged on finding these two sureties.