SUPREME COURT.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 414, 13 May 1902, Page 4

SUPREME COURT.

By Telegraph—Press Association. Napier, last night,

In opening the Supreme Court sessions this morning the Cbiei Justice said the small number of white people charged did not seem to indicate that crime was rife in this district. The calendar comprises ten charges against nine individuals. William Stratford, aged 18, who pldaded guilty in the lower Court on two charges of stealing postal-notes, was admitted to probation for six months ; Kate Whara, found guilty of breaking and entering at Wairoa, sentence deferred. Counsel for Stratford, who came up for sentence at the Supreme Court for the theft of postal-notes, said it was supposed the prisoner had been led away into gambling habits. The Chief Justice said the gambling habit was one which, unfortunately, was not dealt with as it should be, and its evils effects not recognised sufficiently by citizens. In many districts of the colony gambling was going on habitually, and the people who ought to be the leaders of society did not seem to see what it means by the yearly sacrifice to this Moloch of numbers of our young men. Christchurch, last night.

The criminal sessions of the Supreme Court opened to-day. The Judge, in his charge to the Grand Jury, congratulated the district on the lightness of the calendar and the absence from it of any offences against women and 'children. In referring to the cases of Matthew Barnett, for keeping an office for betting, the Judge said some persona held the opinion that there was no harm in betting in itself, and it should not be prohibited by law. The Grand Jury had nothing to do with that, their duty being in seeing whether there was a prima facie case to go before the common jury on the evidence.