SUPREME COURT.-ARSON AND SEDUCTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4088, 28 August 1884, Page 3

SUPREME COURT.-ARSON AND SEDUCTION.

Invercargill, This day

At the Supreme Court yesterday J. H. C. Christie Avas convicted of setting fire to a house at Sambo Creek, Wakatipu, which had on the day of the fire been sold to one Hamilton, but Avhich had formerly been the property of the prisoner's mothor-in-laAV, Mrs Champion. The prisoner was sentenced to seven years' penal sen'itude. The Crown Prosecutor stated that the prisoner had been knoAvn to the police for a number of years; that in September, 1883, he received a sentence in Dunedin of four years' penal servitude for rape; that after that he Avas convicted of horsestealing, receiving a sentence of ono month's imprisonment; that at Christchurch, in 1860, three summary convictions Avere obtained against him for larceny; that at the Supreme Court in Invercargill he received a sentence of four years' penal servitude for larceny ; that two years aftenvards, Avhilo in custody, he escaped from gaol, and Avas sentenced to three years' penal servitude ; anel that tAvo more summary convictions Avere obtained against him for larceny in Dunedin in 1880. The prisoner had for tho last tAventy years been little out of gaol. It is supposed that the object of the prisoner was to conceal the removal of furniture belonging to Mrs Champion by setting the house on fire.

In the case of Mildeii Hall v. Stevens, an action by the father for the seduction of his daughter, aged IG, by the nephoAv of a runholder by whom the plaintiff Avas employed, the jury gaA'e a A-erdict for £150.