RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT, CLYDE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 365, 23 April 1869, Page 3

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT, CLYDE.

Tuesday, April 20. (Before J. Hazlett, Esq., J.P., and J. D. Feraud, Esq., J.P.) Cox v. M'Dougall. Debt, £9 7s. fid. No appearance. Lingard v. Petrie. Debt, £1 7s. Od. No appearance. Holt v. Beck. Debt, £5. Service of summons not proved. Holt v. Thompson. Debt, £2 18s. 9d. Dismissed. (Same day, before the same Justices.) Margaret M'Kean was charged by Ann Box, both of Cromwell, with stealing one bottle of porter and a pair of scissors, of the value of 4s. 6d. The scissors were so rusty that they could 'scarce be 'opened, and the bottle of porter was half empty, and could not be identified. The Bench expressed their sense of the paltry nature of the case, and that it was one that never should have been brought before them. It also transpired that the registry ticket Obtained from Allan's Registry Office, Dunedin, which was for £1 per annum, instead of £1 per week, as the girl was led to believe. Now, as she could not read or write, and considering the whole circumstances of the case, it seems questionable as to whether this is not another instance of unfortunate girls, being deluded into agreements for service in up-country districts under false colors, and when they do not serve their employers in the manner intended, are got rid of in any manner, no matter how unjust or discreditable. In this instance the girl was certainly engaged under a plainly erroneous impression, and the employer shuffled out of the responsibility of her agreement under a 'charge which was evidently false and trumped up. She left the Court without not only a stain upon her character, but with the commisseration of the Bench and thos’e present.