MAGISTERIAL.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2379, 17 November 1881, Page 3

MAGISTERIAL.

CHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday, November 16. [Before G. L. Mellish, Esq, R.M.] Civil Oases. —Baines v Brown, £42 IbsSd. Mr Stringer appeared for plaintiff ; Mr Holmes for defendant. Plaintiff deposed that in 1878 he bought at auction two sections of land, part of a proposed township projected and sold by defendant. Ho paid a deposit and complied with other conditions of sale by paying in instalments the whole of the purchase money. The land was under the Land Transfer Act, but for some reason plaintiff did not get his transfer when his payments were completed. Afterward* defendant filed his schedule, and got his discharge. 0. F. Barker, . the auctioneer who Bold the property ,and who I was defendant’s agent, had also gone through t['o Court and loft the place. On enquiries ns to i'tie, plaintiff was informed that the two section.' he had bought had been transferred to the v'huroh of England, and defendant offered to g;vo plaintiff two other sections in lieu of them. This plaintiff declined, and brought the preset action for the amount he had actually paid, with interest thereon. Mr

Greenwood, formerly & clerk with Mr Barker, proved the sale to plaintiff and the rendering of account sales to’ defendant. Mr Holmes applied for a nonsuit, on the ground that the action was wrongly brought. It should have been for damages for breach of contract. Mr Stringer replied that form of suit would have put him out of Court, the order of defendant’s discharge under the Bankruptcy Acts would have been a sufficient answer. The point was not allowed. The defendant’s case was that the transaction had been all a mistake on his part; ho had left the sale in the hands of his agent, and did not know which sections plaintiff had bought. After Barker ceased to act as agent for him, Draper, Charters and Co. took that place. Defendant before transferring the sections to the church sent for a

plan to them, and received one in which the sections really sold to plaintiff were marked unsold. In cross-examination he said the land was now valued at £7 per acre, plaintiff had paid for it at the rate of £7O per acre, Mr Holmes addressed the Bench, contending that the bankruptcy of defendant had cleared him of responsibility. Mr Stringer replied, and his Worship said he thought that defendant could not claim the benefit of the Act in respect to this transaction, as there had clearly been a breach of trust on his part, and negligence not supplying the transfer. He should have protected plaintiff's interest. At the same time there had been certain negligence on the part of plaintiff in allowing the transaction to remain uncompleted for such a

length ot time. Judgment for plaintiff for £35 Oj 4d, being the amount of the cloim less interest, solicitor’s fee, £3 3a, coats of Court and expenses of one witness. —Hopper v Rickerby, claim £4 4j 7d for groceries, &0., supplied. Mr Holmes for defendant. Judgment for plaintiff for amount claimed. —Judgments went by default for plaintiffs with costs in Twenty man and Cousin y Ward and Co., £45 6a 7d ; Fenton y Salvi, £4 5a 6d ; Calvert y Rogers and MoKendrie, £36. Sheath y Marsholl, £43 3a ; Brittan v Woods, £1 2a ; same v Morahali, 12a; Hyde y Simpson, £7 10a; Gow y Murphy, £2 7s 4i; George v Gibson, £2 6a 9d ; Neighbours y McKendrio and Rogers, £8 7a; Allen v Fisher, 7s 6d, and Orerar and Whitcombe y Fraser (costs), 8s. —Simpson v Wilcox was adjourned till November 23rd„ Scrimshaw y Hamilton and Willis till January 4th, 1882.

Thursday, November 17. Before G. L. Mellish, Bsq., R.M., and W. H.

Pilliet, Esq., J.P.] Drunkenness. —Jane Gough, who had only recently been convicted of a similar offence, was fined 40a, or a week’s imprisonment with hard labor.

Larceny. —Eliza Jane MoHalenny was charged with stealing a purse containing Is, one pair of gloves and one pair of boots, valued at 14e, the property of Eliza Morris. The evidence of prosecutrix was inaudible at the reporter’s table. Constable Wallace, who arrested her, stated that she was wearing the boots, and she said she had merely borrowed them to ease her feet. The parties were domestic servants, acquaintances. Prisoner said she had no intention to steal the things. The Magistrate said be was loth to convict so young a girl, but he had no alternative. He would, however, make the sentence os light as possible, and ho thought he could make some arrangement to provide her with a place afterwards. She was sentenced to one week’s imprisonment.

Using Thebatening Language.—Lotti Wilmot appeared to answer a summons charging her with having, on November 6th, at Papanui, used abusive and threatening language towards Qeo. Wm, Coatts Moon, calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, and that she did also violently declare and threaten to further illuse and abuse him, contrary to the statute. There was also a civil action brought for damages, £SO, accruing out of an aggravated assault. The actions were taken together. Mr Holmes appeared for the plaintiff; he asked that the names of witnesses subpoenaed by the prosecution should be read over. This was done, and John Jackson, a butcher at Papanui, was reported as not present. Mr Holmes said be would perhaps ask that a warrant be issued forthwith for hie arrest, in the meantime he would go on with the case. He then related at length the story of the cause of the action, and called plaintiff, who deposed to having, as the secretary to the Papanui Town Hall, together with Mr Jackson, a director, let the ball to defendant, for the purpose of lecturing on Sunday nights. An agreement was made that the hall should be opened just as the peopls were leaving church. The hall was used on one Sunday night, and, after that experience, the directors gave witness instructions not to allow it to be opened again before 8 p.m. After service witness informed defendant of these instructions, and she objected to them. On the evening of the date mentioned, she, accompanied by a crowd of people, stuck him up and demanded the key. He refused to give it up until the time he had been instructed to do so. She then attacked him with a knobbed supplejeok (produced), and severely whipped him, using, at the same time, very abusive language, and threatening to further punish him. Defendant subjected plaintiff to a long cross-examination, in which he said that he had never told her that the directors and a person called “ Pious Charlie ” were conspiring to prevent the tramoars being run, as bad at first been arranged. She put in a number of letters between herself and the Town) Hall Company, and proceeded for a length of time, until interrupted by the Bench, when she said she was endeavoring to show the provocation she had received. In answer to one of her questions, plaintiff said he had filed his declaration of insolvency about a month ago ; he sued for himself, however, not for his trustees. Alfred Bobh corroborated the evidence of the plaintiff ; she called him a thief, a servant for some of the Psalm singers—a mere substitute for a man —or she would have torn him to pieces. She said if he were as big a man as some, she would have killed him; but, being a little one, she did not like to hurt him. Plaintiff had made no resistance, and used no provocative language. He merely told defendant thot he must act up to the instructions of his directors ; ho could not open the hall until eight o'clock. Wm. Pullan gave similar evidence. Cross-examined, he said ho did not hear threats of future assault. At this stage the Bench suggested that enough evidence had been given, but Mr Holmes call* i another witness without, however, examining him. Cross-examination elicited nothing further than has been stated above, and yet another witness called added no more. _ The Bench more than once expressed the opinion that there was a great waste of time being made. Defendant, speaking to her own case, said she admitted having, under great provocation, assaulted plaintiff. The threatening language she denied altogether. The hall had been lot to her without any stipulation whatever, and she considered she had a right of access it to as she Plaintiff after, in the guise of friendship, warning her of “ plots” that wore being got up to prevent her success as a lecturer in Papanui by certain persons, whom she would not name, turned on her and insulted her by his language and demeanour when she asked for admission to the place, for which he had already taken her money as rent. She had struck in the heat of her momentary irritation, with a stick, the small supplejack produced. It was a stick she carried habitually, and she had not armed herself with it for the occasion. She, although only a woman, found occasionally necessity for taking her own part, but what she had done was not previously planned, but merely on the spur of the moment. His Worship said defendant might feel called upon to take her own part, but she had no right to take it in that way. It looked to him very much like endeavoring

to got a sensational advertisement cheaply. Ha should fine defendant Is for abusive language, and give judgment for the plaintiff in the civil action for £5 with costs, and ex. pensos of four witnesses £1 10s.