AUCKLAND SESSIONS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2464, 18 May 1915, Page 9

AUCKLAND SESSIONS

SOME SERIOUS CASES. (B.y Telegraph.—Pres3 Association.) Auckland, May 17. The Supreme Court criminal sessions opened to-day. Mr. Justice Chapman, in hie ehwga to tha fwuid iuw. said

that some of tho cases were of a very serious nature. The calendar was not, as a wholo, of an ordinary character. In tho charge of murder against Norman Edwin. Seals, tho prisoner mado no secret of tho fact that ho was the author of an. extraordinary crime. The ciroumstances might suggest some doubt as to his mental responsibility, but that was not lor tho grand jury to determine. Rogarding the charge of manslaughter against Harry Johnson, it was ono of keen public interest. Four men were employed attaching an apparatus at the top of a signalling pole near tho railway station, wo of tnem being at the cross trees. A derrick had been erected, having four guys, one of which crossed the railway line. While shunting operations were in progress a truck with a hut in it passed under the rope, caught it, and Brought tho derrick down, ono of the men on the crosstrees being dragged off and killed. Johnson was the foreman in charge of the operations, and the law was that the man who undertook such a duty should see that tho work was conducted so as not to ondanger human life. _ The Grand Jury found no bill against Harry Johnson, charged with manslaughter, in that as foreman of the laihvay gang, ho failed to see that tho guy ropes of a derrick were clear of passing trains. A passing train struck one of the ropes and a workman was thrown heavily and received injuries causing his death.

Alfred J. Burrows, a ship's fireman, was found not guilty of theft from the dwelling of Police-Sergeant O'Grady, of Ponsonby.

A music teacher named John Loslie Lauder pleaded guilty to committing an unnatural act, and not guilty to indecent assault, of which, however, the jury found him guilty. The Judge said the man was utterly .unfit to associate with human beings as a free creature, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life on the first chargo and ten years on the second.