SUPREME COURT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3084, 15 May 1917, Page 9

SUPREME COURT

OPENING OF CRIMINAL SESSIONS

A LIGHT CALENDAR ONE SENTENCE OF TEN VEARS , GAOL. The criminal session of the Supremo Court at Wellington opened yesterday morning. His Honour Mr. Justice Edwards prosided. Mr. P. S. K. Macassey .appeared for the Crown. His Honour, in his charge to the Grand Jury, said that there were only eight bills to consider, and that none of them presented any difGculty in law or in fact. He regretted that the list, though small, included some charges of abominable offences against tho young. There ivas also a charge of arson against a well-known settler in the Wairarapa. Tho prisoner did not appear to deny that ho committed the crimo, but sought to excuse himself on the ground that perhaps a quarter of a century ago he obtained from some Maori or Maoris a lease, or an incomplete lease, of the land -upon ■which the buildings destroyed had stood. Accused apparently considered that he was, for the reason mentioned, justified in burning down the -property of a dairy company. Of course that was no excuse. The evidence seemed to show that accused was of disordered intellect. That was, however, a matter to be determined in open Court. A man of unsound mind ought not to be sent to gaol, but one whose disorder induced him to burn down other people's property should be confined, not as a prisoner, but as a lunatic.