MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1289, 18 November 1911, Page 14

MAGISTRATE'S COURT

(Before Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M.) CONDUCTOR'S. TACT. IN CROWDED CITY TRAMCARS. HIS CASE FALLS FLAT. A passenger was charged with Laving assaulted George Morris, a tram conductor. Mr. J. O'Shea (City Solicitor) prosecuted, and Mr. A. Blair defended. The matter arose out of an occurrence on a Miraniar tramcar on September 28. The passenger and his son wero standing in a crowded compartment when Morris called for fares. v • ......-,, The case (as it was'stated by "tho' conductor) was that he had asked the passenger to move asido, and tho latter nad replied that he could not. Then the< conductor had put his hand on him; "gently," to move him'over, ahd : the passenger had thereupon struck him in tho stumach with his kneo. Tho conductor then stopped the car, and accused the passenger of assault. In support of this viow of the occurrence, Alice Matilda Andrews was called to give evidence She deposed that the action appeared to bo deliberate. Tho defence was that no assault had been committed—that ..when, the conductor had endeavoured to move the passenger aside the latter had lost his balanco and fallen against tne conductor. Accused stated that when the conductor farst appeared for fares ho had said very rudely, 'Get back." He (accused) hail explained that, owing to tho people behind, he could not do so. Evidence for the defence was given by Mr. A. Burt who was m tho next compartment, and by defendants son.

His Worship made some - observations upon tho difficulty which conductors expononced in collecting fares on crowded cars, tho duty of passengers to givo tho conductors all the assistance possible, tho ease with which a person who has both hands occupied can overbalance when standing ma tramcar, and remarked that the conductor might have been somewhat hasty, and concluded by deciding that on the evidence it was impossible to hold that there had been an assault, whereupon he dismissed tho information

OTHER CASES. A charge of the theft of 16s. sd. worth, of wearing apparel was made against I'rank Bernard Elliott, for whom Mr. E. Balcombo Brown appeared. Defendant was a steward on the Hemnera, which recently arrived from England, and his accusers were other stewards. Elliott declared that tho apparel was really his own property. His Worship dismissed the information. Alfred Parker was fined £3 for having used obscene language.

CIVIL CASE. (Before Dr, A. M'A-rthnj, S.M.) A PRESSING MACHINE. The caso in which Charles Seymour /'']?• iV? d t william Gilbert Monat, both of Wellington, engineers, trading as Irillo and Monat, proceeded against ?-1n ry rn Norti , • and C - warehousemen, Little Taranaki Street, Wellington, claiming to recover £16 10s., as tho price of a pressing machine sold and delivered to colluded ™or about May 30, was

f ."'j' 3 f Vorship gaTe indgmeat for the de-