AUCKLAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 616, 2 October 1858, Page 4

AUCKLAND.

THE LATE KIJIR.—TUB VEKDIOT. James Henry King, jun., and -his mother Susan King, were placed at the bar on Tlwrstlay

morning, indicted on the capital count of malicious and wilful fire raising; and secondly, upon separate counts of setting fire to the premises known as the Osprey Inn, with intent to defraud the Liverpool and London, Northern, and Unity Fire Insurance Companies, and to injure other parties not named. Mr Merriman conducted the case on benalt ot the Crown, and Messrs. Bartley and Brookfield on the part of the prisoners. The following is the jury that was empaneljg(j. * Samuel Tweedale, Amos Vickery, John Walters, George Wagstaff, Thomas Walters, W. R. Waddell, Thos. Vaughan, C. E Vickers, Geo Vickery, John Tynon,, George Vaughan, and Bryant Vercoe, foreman. Few trials have excited a more intense interest than this; and none has been of anything like equal duration in the criminal records of Auckland, three entire days having been consumed in bringing it to a termination. We have not the space to give even an outline report of the proceedings, nor do we con sider it at all of consequence that we should do so. The investigations before the Coroner and the Resident Magistrate are too fresh in men's minds to calt for any reproduction of the evidence which was substantially the same, though not quite so much elaborated as that adduced on Thursday and Friday. ." John Ogilvie, Henry Sims, John Finlay, and Stephen Letham were all consistent with and "varied in no particular of moment from the testimony they twice before had given. Edward Barnett, the sailor, who vereed and hauled in his evidence before the Coroner and that tendered to the Resident Magistrate, made much less variation on this occasion. Bryant Ward again testified to the carting away of furniture and Thomas Sims to the having carried away furniture from the Osprey to King's house at Parriell; matters of fact in which they were corroborated by the testimony of John Hancock another carter, Hannah Gourlejr, who kept a lodging-house opposite to the Osprey, and Andrew Hodge, blacksmith, whose smithy was situated in O'Connel street. For the prosecution, there was but little additional evidence brought forward. Mrs. Sutherland did, it is true, add to her previous information this startling declaration, that, on the forenoon before the fire, she heard the male prisoner, whilst walking up and down the kitchen, and talking to himself, say—"This night will decide my fate either one way or the other." She did not think much of the expression at the time, but had thought a great deal of it since. .And William Thos. Hunt testified to the anxiety manifested by the male prisoner to remove a broken-kneed horse, under the care of Mr. Halstead, veterinary surgeon, and contrary to his injunctions,? from the Osprey stable to the House at Parnell.

There were nine witnesses called for the defence, the leading point in which Avas to show the way in which the male prisoner had |)assed his time at a Maori house of ill fame from the period of his leaving the Thistle Inn until the -outbreak of the fire. ■

On Saturday, after the learned counsel on both sides had addressed the Jury, Ms Honour commenced summing up in a clear and comprehensive manner, his charge having taken within a few minutes of four hours in the delivery. The Jury were absent a little more than an hour and then returned into Court with a verdict of Not ■Guilty.—' Auckland Register,' 6th Sept.