PROVINCIAL NEWS

Kumara Times, Issue 2804, 16 September 1885, Page 2

PROVINCIAL NEWS

[united PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Christchurch, September 14. A. professional swindler, named Mary Belinda Todd, with many aliases, was sentenced to 12 months' hard labour today for imposing on the landlord of the Templeton Hotel by representing herself to be a lady of means, and getting board and lodging on the cheap. A charge of uttering a forged cheque for £lll is pending against her. September 15. This morning Justice Johnston gave judgment in the case of George Donne on the question of whether in the administration of bankrupt's assets the Crown is entitled to priority over other creditors. He held that as in England the Crown had such a priority before the passing of the Act of 1883, and as the provision of that Act depriving the Crown of that prerogative, except in certain cases, had not been adopted by the New Zealand Act, the right of the Crown must prevail. Auckland, September 15. A lad named Archibald Ferguson, while ploughing yesterday afternoon at East Tamaki, met with a fatal accident. The horses bolted, and one of the traces was driven violently into the lad's abdomen, causing frightful injuries, which terminated fatally after several hours suffering. Caroline Stevens, daughter of W. K. Stevens, commission agent, died of brain fever, evidently the result of mental strain during the recent pupil teachers' examination. In her last moments she was reciting lessons and totting up figures. Dunedin, September 15. A verdict of manslaughter against a patient who is a coufirmed lunatic, and therefore unaccountable for his actions, was returned by the jury at the inquest on a Chinaman at Seacliff. The warder heating some scuffling found a patient Lenegleu kicking the Chinaman, who died shortly afterwards.