RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1938, 22 July 1869, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

This i*ay. (Before A. Chetham-Strode, Esq., R.M.) THEFT. Edward Coonan was charged with stealing a LI note from the bar of the Golden Age Hotel, Stafford street. Mr Ward appeared for the prisoner, who pleaded not guilty. Richard I horason, barman at the Golden Age Hotel, said that at about a quarter to six o’clock last evening, a woman named Murdoch came into the bar at the hotel, and got change for a LI note, which he placed in the till. In taking the note it became marked with magenta coloring, which he had been using at the time. He left the bar for a few minutes, and when he returned the note was missing. About three-quarters of an hour afterwards the prisoner came into the bar and obtained a shillings worth of brandy, tendering in payment a LI note. When the note was produced, witness at once observed that it was the one had been stolen out of the till, and he said to the i.risoner, “This is the note that has been taken out of my till.” Prisoner said that he got the note from a Mrs Tierney, who lived opposite. From the evidence of the police, it appeared that on his way to the station-house, the prisoner offered to give up the note if the barman would say nothing more about the matter. Mr Ward contended that there was not sufficient evidence to show that the note produced was the one that was said to have been taken from the bar of the hotel. He submitted that it was scarcely probable that if the prisoner had been the thief he would have gone to the hotel so soon after the alleged theft and changed the identical note. He called a Mr Tierney, who said that between the hours of six and 7 o’clo k last evening, the prisoner came to her and asked to borrow LI; not having it, she went to her next door neighbor, Mrs i and borrowed LI from her, handing it to the prisoner immediately afterwards, outside her ■loor. Mrs O’Rourke stated that she gave the note to the last witness without looking at it. The Magistrate said that considerable doubt existed in his mind as to the matter, and discharged the prisoner with a caution. MINOR OFFENCE. A stable keeper was fined 5s and costs, for neglecting to keep clean his premises, OBTAINING MONEY UNDER FALSE PRETENCES. John Dent, alias Andt-rson, alias Teviot, and Thomas Leslie, were charged on remand with having on the 28th nit., obtained the sum of L 3 from one Jacob Seagcr, hotelkeeper, Dunedin, by means of a valueless

cheque. The statements made by the prisoners Were rend to them ; and, having further to say, they were committed for trial. The statement of Leslie was to the effect that he bad been asked to cash the cheques by the witness M'Ghechan. FORGERY AND UTTERING. Thomas Leslie was then charged with having, on the 28th ult., forged a cheque for L2. It appeared from the evidence, that on the afternoon of the day in question, the prisoner, who had been in the company of the prisoner Dent and the witness M ‘Geghan, went to the office of Mr Hardy, architect, Princes street, from whose office-boy he obtained a blank cheque on thd Bmk of New Zealand ; and, in the lad’s presence, fill d it up, making it payable to “Thomas Tevi -t.” He told the lad that he had filled up the cheque for “a lark.” Upon leaving Mr Hardy’s office, he went along Princes street with Dent and M'Gheghan, and after some consultation with them, the cheque, which was for L2, was transferred to Dent, who took it to the Rising Sun Hotel, in Walker street, whe ehe got it cashed. The proce ds were divided between the three men. The prisoner was committed for trial ; as also was Dent, on a charge of uttering the cheque.