JOTTINGS FROM WANGANUI.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 790, 13 April 1910, Page 3

JOTTINGS FROM WANGANUI.

► — STRONG WORDS BX A MAGISTRATE. (Bj- Toleeraplr.—Special Correspondent.! Wanganui, April 12. The Castlecliif Town Board has received advice that a special loan of .£3OOO for the formation and completion of streets and footpaths has been approved. ■The Wanganui Hospital Board has been notified by the Government that the Valuer-General's assessment of the capital value of property in its district is .£10,755,519. The district comprises the counties of Waitotara, WanKanui, Kangitikei, and Waimarino, with all boroughs and town districts therein. So far no further' bodies of the victims of Sunday's boating accideift have been recovered. The inquest opens tomorrow. The matter of the formation of a beautifying society for Wanganui is being taken up with great enthusiasm, and many promises of help have been received from prospective members. One hundred and twenty-one cases were treated in the Wanganui Hospital last month, 74 remaining in the institution at the end of that period. There were ten cases of typhoid. 'A United States judge once said that when a man would go into' the witnessbox and wilfully swear away the honour of a woman he would not believe, him even if he ■ knew his statements to be frue. 1 feel almost inclined to say the same in this case." These were, the words nsed yesterday afternoon, by Mr. Kerr, S.M., in sentencing a man named Frank Leipensky to 30 days' hard labour for the theft of a ring. In entering a plea of guilty accused's counsel, Mr. D. Hogg, said that accused had been boarding at the house, and alleged improper conduct between him and the landlady. He had taken the ring last November from her room, and had never been asked for it, or he would have admitted haying it. Counsel asked that he bo convicted and discharged, or ordered to come up for sentence when called. Sergeant Bourke, who prosecuted, said ho objected to the insinuation made against the woman. There was' no evidence on the matter and he had every reason for believing that both the woman and her husband were thoroughly respectable people. Accused had stolen the ring in the woman's absence and had pawned it for ss. His Worship 6aid that, acting under the instructions of his client, Mr. Hogg had pleaded improper relations between accused and the woman as an excuse for theft. His Worship considered this a most shameful thing and could not express his contempt for a man who would deliberately swear away the honour of a woman. Such a one was a craven-hearted scoundrel whose conduct could only be described as scandalous. ' Prisoner was sentenced to 30 days', imprisonment with hard labour, and an order,.was madesfor the restitution of ss. to the pawnbroker. . ,