RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2569, 12 May 1871, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

This Day. (Before A. C. Strode, Escp,[R. M.) Civil Cases. AA'ishart v. North.—A claim for LHO, for damage done to plaintiff’s cattle. Mr Smith, assisted by Mr Stewart, for the plaintiff; Mr Haggitt for the defendant. The plaintiff said in his evidence that on the night of the 13th April, he saw some twenty cows belonging to him, which were in full milk and in good condition, lying down as for the night. On the 14th, when they were brought in to milk, they were tom and bleeding, and looked as if they had been without food. Some were so injured that one, Enable to walk, full, broke her leg, ami hj ,d to be killed. The rest since that time gradually lost their milk. He was told by Robert Allan on the 14lh that the cattle were detained in North’s stock yard, and lie wrote telling him that as his land was not fenced he had no right to detain them. He had been summoned for damages at Port Chalmers by North, and had not rendered any account for claim upon him prior to it, but he would have presented it had he not been summoned. He was lined 17s 6d and costs for bis cattle trespassing on North’s laud. Robert Allan, assistant to Wishart, said missing the cows cm the I4th, he searched for them ami found them iu North’s stockyard. On applying to him to liberate them, North said he would neither let them out nor permit him (Allan) to do it. The cattle were afterwards liberated by the two sons of the defendant, who abused them with sticks. They were very lame, and from one cow he milked some blood for some days afterwards. He attributed their going dry to ill-treatment by defendant and his sons. Por the defence, ill-usage of the cattle was denied and justiti-

cation of the impounding, and that the pro ceediugs were taken through revenge. (Left sitting.)