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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1101, 23 August 1871, Page 2

Mails for Australia close at the Bluff at 11 o'clock to-morrow morning. It will be observed by advertisement that Messrs. A. Peters and Co. have made a considerable reduction in the fares to Waipawa and Waipukurau by their line of coaches.

| In the Resident Magistrate's Court this morning two youths, named John Hawkins and Frederick Hawker, were charged with having stolen a rod of iron from the wharf on Saturday last. Edward Cook, wharfinger, deposed that on Saturday night, hearing a noise on the wharf, he went there and saw John Hawkins (the father of one of the prisoners) on the wharf. He looked round and found that one rod of iron was missing from a bundle, but afterwards found it lying under the wharf. He marked it at each end, intending to discover who would come for it. He next found two pieces of the rod (both marked) in the blacksmith's shop on the Spit, and identified them. Proof was brought that they had been taken thete by the prisoners to be made into eelspears.—lnspector Scully deposed that on the prisoners being interrogated they said that they had had the iron in their possession for some months, and that they had brought it from the Western Spit.—His Worship said that though the case was exceedingly suspicious, there was no direct proof that the prisoners had committed the theft. Taking this fact into consideration, and also regarding the defective arrangements for hard labor prisoners in this Province, he would give the prisoners the benefit of the doubt, and discharge them, warning them, however, that they had had a very narrow escape.