DOMINION ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 28 March 1924, Page 3

DOMINION ITEMS

RY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSN., COPYRIGHT. UNUSUAL ULG AMY CASE. WELLINGTON, March 20 A bigamy ease, quite out of the usual variety, came before the Chief Justice (Right Hon Sir Robert Stout) yesterday, when a middle-aged man named Harold Stanley Hodgkins appeared for sentence. It was the old story of Eve and Adam. The man, of course, fell, although he was a married man. The prisoner had met the second woman in the (to them) romantic atmosphere of a vaudeville theatre. He later wont through a matrimonial ceremony with her. The lady showed that it was a ease of love at first sight. AVOAIAN TAKES ALL BLAAIE. In asking the somewhat unusual step of writing to the Chief Justice, she admitted as much, and took the entire blame for the whole affair on her own shoulders. The prisoner had shown repentance, declared his counsel (Air AV. Perry). It was a ease of bigamy in its least serious degree. He thought it a case for probation, or if His Honour could not see his way to grant that, then a nominal punishment should be imposed.

“AN UNUSUAL CASE.” The Chief Justice agreed that it was a decidedly unusual ease. He intimated that he had received a letter from "the second wife" in which she took the blame.

'Mt is not one oi tbo.se cases In which a young person has been deceived,” said His Honour, who admitted the- prisoner to three years’ probation. The condition -was that he should pay4* weekly maintenance to his wife. “If ho. fails to do that," added His Honour. “he will then come before the court for sentence.” In reply to a question the Chief Justice was informed that Hudgins had no children by his first marriage, but they had adopted a child, now seven years of ago. “A SUDDEN IMPULSE.” AV EL LING TON, Alareh 20 Tho tragic circumstances surrounding the death of a young man named Francis Charles Nelson, who was found dead oil Sunday morning with a bullet wound through the heart, were investigated in the coroner’s court- yesleday before Air \Y. ft. Riddell, S.AI. “IN GOOD HEALTH AND NO TROUBLE.” Evidence was given by the youngman’s mother as to the finding of the body in a chair in the dining-room with a .22 calibre rifle lying on tho floor nearby, lie had been in good health, and, as far as she knew had bad no troubles weighing on his mind, lie was of a quiet disposition, and had been in constant employment. He had had two brothers killed"' at the front

during the war, and he had taken their death very much to heart at the time. The rifle was an old one which had been in the house some time, and she did not know that there were any cartridges for it about the place. BULLET THROUGH THE BODY. The constable who was called tu the house when the tragedy was discovered stated that he found the hotly lying, on a couch, and upon examining it saw a bullet wound in the region of the heart, and a rifle with a discharged cartridge sheil in the breech was lying on the table. When he undressed the deceased, the bullet, which had passed through the body, fell out on to the floor. Although he searched the house lie was unable to find any other cartridges that would lit the rilie. CORONER’S RE-MARKS.

The coroner said that there was really no evidence to show why deceased should have made atv ay witdi himself; it was the result, evidently, of a sudden impulse. The verdict would he that deceased had died as the result of a sell-inflicted bullet wound near the heart.

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