RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COUR Friday.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 340, 10 February 1871, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COUR Friday.

[Before Thomas Beckham, Esq., B.M.] The usual sitting was held yesterday for the hearing of small debt cases. JITDG-i-ENT TOU PLAINTIFFS. —Nell V. W. Povd, claim, £2, cash lent; agreed to pay in a fortnight; A. Thorne v. H. Becker, claim, £7 10s. (former judgment unsatisfied) ; Gillan v. Chapman, £7 (judgment debt unsatisfied), ordered to pay 2s. a week ; Skeat v. i Sinimonds, £G, rent; ordered to pay ten shdlings a week. Ft_i_._: v. CoKN—Alleged fraud.—Claim, £2 153 —Mr. Wynn said that this was a case in which tbe Court ought to inflict the bigbbst penalty known to the law. The defendant, it appeared, bought a watch off the plaintiff, tendering a cheque in payment, saying that he had tho money in the Bank of New Zealand. The plaintiff, however, ascertained that there was very great doubt about the defendant having money in the bank. The cheque was ultimately found to be worthless, as the defendant had no money there at all. — The plaintiff deposed to the facts, and said that the defendant never gave him any portion of the debt. The defendant sub.equently said that it was bis wile who had the account at tho bank.—The defendant, with great •saueiness, for which he was rebuked by the Court, said he had offered the plait-tiff half-a-crown off the debt, and a pumpkin, which was also worth half a crown. He would have paid more, but the plaintiff behaved so badly and went to the Police Court to prosecute him criminally.—The Court: If bis statement be true, and there is no reason to doubt it, he would have been justified in prosecuting you criminally; you mu3t pay the money or go to pmon for two mouths.—Defendant: I will go to prison for fifty months before I'd pay the rogue a penny. —It transpired in the course of examination that the defendant went to Mr. James Bussell to ask for money to bury one of his children, but ho evidently forgot this circumstance when questioned by Mr. Wynn, for his answers were to the effect that he bad not lost any of his children.— * His Worship said *_c defendant had not improved his position by his behaviour. — Humphrey v. Saville. —Claim, £6. —This was a claim for wastes. —Mr. Bussell appeared for the defendant. —The defence was that there was no indebtedness, that plaintiff boarded and lodged at the defendant's boarding house for several years " off and on," and that if there was any claim it was on the side of the defendant.—The evidence was conflicting, and the plaintiff was nonsuited.