MAGISTRATE'S COURT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2958, 22 December 1916, Page 11

MAGISTRATE'S COURT

■ Messrs.W. H. Hannah and J,"'W.Ellison, J.P.'s, presided over a short sitting of the Magistrate's Court yesterday morning;. For. insobriety, William Wilson was fined 205., and Edward Smith 10s. William Joseph Cotter, deemed by the police to be a rogue and a vagabond, was charged with being illegally on the. Government House grounds by night. The police statement was that he had been discovered near the residence at about 3.30 a.m., and, being twice accosted by a constable, had given two totally different explanations of his, presence,there.. Ho was remanded to December 28, in order to give the police an opportunity of ascertaining his antecedents, and the'object for which he entered the wounds. Mr. L. 6: Keid, S.M., presided over tho afternoon session of the Court. . Solomon Gordon, for whom Mr. A. H. Hindmarsh appeared, _ pleaded not guilty to three charges in respect of the exhibition and sale of one allegedly indecent photograph, and the sale of a third. ..;..._ The defendant, a picture-dealer in business in the'city, admitted, the exhibition and sale' of the photographs, but not the alleged indecency of-them. In reply to a statement by the police that the defendant had been warned, Mr. Hindmarsh assured the Court that the, defendant had asked the' police about certain pictures; and had m no instance sold one which the police had considered to be "on the border line." This was not denied by the police. His Worship held that there was no indecency in a picture called "Flirt ing," and dismissed the two informations relating to it. The other pic-ture-he considered to be in'a different category. It had not,' however, been exhibited, but had been .sold—to a man of mature years. A conviction on the third information was recorded, and : a fine of 40s. inflicted.