MAGISTRATES’ COURTS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2159, 26 January 1881, Page 3

MAGISTRATES’ COURTS.

CHRISTCHURCH. Wbdhbbdat, January 26. [Before J. Nugent Wood, Esq,, R.M.] DaUNKBJfHKBS. -An incorrigible offender named Mary Ann Kirkwood was brought up for being drunk. She was described as an habitual drunkard, and was sent to prison for ■ix months, to bo kept at bard labor.

DiaOBBDIBNCB TO ORDERS OP COUBT.— Joseph Cummings was charged with neglecting to contribute to the maintenance, at the rate of 15s per week, of his wife and family. The police slated that had lately boon treated at Lyttelton gad for lanaoy from drink. When steady he could earn good wages. He pleaded poverty, and the Bench postponed the case for four weeks, to give him a chance to resume his payments.

LYTTELTON. Wbbhbbday, Jahuaby 26. [Before Joseph Beswibk, E*q. ( B M.J Must bb Made to Contbibotb.—Samuel Worthy mi charged with neglecting to pay towards the support of bis offspring in the Industrial Home. He had handed to the police £1 since his arrest, and now promised to pay the whole or a part of the £1 5s still owing by next Wednesday. Thu Magistrate gave him the required time to do so. A Pbottuab Oasb —A respectable looking young man named Horry Potter, remanded from Dunedin, where he was arrested, was charged, under em information sworn to by Thomas Wright, with feloniously stealing a watch and chain from said Wright. Mr H. N. Balder appeared for the prisoner, and after the prosecutor bad stated as to missing the articles in question, which it appeared bad been left to be repaired at the shop—the chain by one person and the watch by another Counsel for the prisoner, asked the prosecutor whether he had not sold out his business to the prisoner at a time that an execution for debt had been taken out against himself, and whether the bailiff was not got out of the shop by prosecutor producing a sale note representing that the business had been sold, with the stock and effects, to the prisoner. Witness replied that such was the case, and that the watch now alleged to have been stolen wns conveyed to the prisoner with the rest of the business. It appeared that the consideration given to Wright for the business was three promissory notes, the first of which had not yet matured, and that ths watchmaking business was still being carried on in the name of the prisoner. Upon this evidence being given, the Bench said the case could not go on with the present prosecutor, Wright, who was really in the position of a servant of the prisoner’s. The watch would be, however, handed to its

rightful owner, namely, the person who had loft it at the shop to bo repaired, '- 'As rthja prisoner was leaving the dock, ’he wo* re-arrested by Ik detective from Dunedin, who charged him with the larceny of a case , of gem rings, alleged to have been stolen by prisoner from a fellow passenger of his

from home. At the instance of the police prisoner was remanded for twenty-four hours into custody, to admit of the warrant arriving from Dunedin. _ „ _. ("'itid —ft. Smith v Q-. W. Pierce, Haim £22 8i 6d ; Mr Naldor for plaintiff ; judgment for plaintiff. H. N. Nalder v Grabb, claim j judgment by default.