MAGISTRATES' COURTS.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 905, 19 May 1877, Page 3

MAGISTRATES' COURTS.

CHRISTCHURCH. Saturday, Mat 19. (Before G. L. Mellish, Esq., P.M.) Dbunk and Disorderly.—C. E. Trounce arrested for Drunkenness, was fined 40s. W. A. Simmons for being drunk and committing an act of exposure at the Christchurch railway station, was fined 20s and Is cab fare. Illegally on Premises. —Robert Myer was arrested for being found illegally on the back premises of the Wellington Hotel at a late hour the previous night. Accused told his Worship he was staying at the hotel, but the barman did not know this. He would abstain from drinking in the future if his Worship would give him a chance, and he had work to go to on Monday morning. _ His Worship told the man he would give him a last chance, but he must not appear before him again. Discharged. Abduction. —George Robinson, a halfcaste, was charged on remand with the abduction from Otago of a young half-caste Maori girl named Ollivia Robertson. Mr Thomas appeared for the accused. Inspector Buckley asked for a further remand, as he had the previous day received a telegram from the Commissioner of Police, Otago. saying the warrant had been forwarded by the Phoebe. Mr Thomas told his Worship he would ask that the girl said to have been abducted should be examined. According to his client's statement, he was coming on to Canterbury, where he is in the habit of coming annually to pay his relations here a visit. He happened to meet the girl on the steamer to Oamaru, and, much against his wish, she came on, and for the first portion of the journey he really did not know she was accompanying him. So far as injuring the girl was concerned, his client had written to her father, some time since, asking her in marriage, but the father had not replied, as he (Mr Thomas) understood he wished her to marry some one else. If, after hearing the girl's evidence, a prima facie case were not made out —though his Worship would have to remand the accused to Dunedin on the arrival of the warrant —yet an action for malicious prosecution would lie against the father of the girl. Ollivia Robertson, called, deposed : My father's name is John Robertson, and he lives at the Maori Kaik, Otago. My age is eighteen. I know that it is, as my father wanted me to marry a man thirteen months ago, and he told me then that I was seventeen. I was born in the North Island. My father has lately wanted me to marry a white man in Otago. j left my home on last Saturday, and came on to Oamaru in the Samson. I know Robertson the accused. He was not aware of the fact of my being on board and going to Oamaru. He did not offer me any inducement to go to Oamaru, or ask me to leave home. Ho did not see me until I was on the way to Oamaru, and did not know I was on board. When he knew I was on board, the engineer of the steamer came to me and told me to go back. Robertson was by at the time and heard it, and asked me to go back, and said I was foolish to come like that. We afterwards came up to Christchurch in the train together on the same day, and the police came to the Oxford boarding-house to me. Ido not know when Robertson was arrested. I was not present at the time. Since Robertson has been released on bail I have continued to stay at the boarding-house, and he has stayed at his own hotel. We have not been living under the same roof or anything like that. lam quite sure Robertson never offered me any inducement or asked me to come away with him. I do not know the engineer's name on board the Samson, but he asked me to go back, and Robertson did the same. This was on the same day that I started from home. Mr Thomas said this was all the evidence he had to offer, and he would ask that accused might be admitted to bail on his own recognisances. His Worship said that, after the girl's evidence, he would certainly accede to Mr Thomas's request, though he would have to act on the warrant when it arrived. MiThomas said that, though the girl had acted indiscreetly, she had not been injured in any way. He had been informed that she had been sent to the railway station that morning in charge of a policeman to be sent on to Dunedin by the steamer sailing that day. Inspector Buckley said that he had received a telegram from the Commissioner of Polico, Otago, saying the father wished that the girl should be sent down by first boat. In reply to his Worship the girl said she was not willing to return home. She had relations in Akaroa to whom she would like to go. His Worship said she had acted in a very foolish manner, and it would be as well if she were seen safely on board, as her evidence would be required in Dunedin. Defendant would be remanded for eight days, to be brought up sooner if the warrant arrived. In the meantime he would be admitted to bail in his own recognizances of £2O. LYTTELTON. Saturday, May 19. [Before W. Donald, Esq., R.M.] Drunkenness. —Timothy Hayes, arrested bv Constable Bulleu, was fined 10s. Thomas Sullivan, for a similar offence, was fined 10s. Lusacy euqji Drink. —William Smith, on remand from Ashburtou, having recovered, was discharged on payment of a guinea, expenses incurred.