AN OAMARU LOCHINVAR.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 330, 2 July 1875, Page 3

AN OAMARU LOCHINVAR.

A.case was lately argued before Judge Johnston, inDuhedin. of a peculiar naturer It appears that :a:oman 'of the'name 1 of. Walter Hosack was charged before, the Oamaru Resident Magistrate as being a rogue and vagabond; under an Act. entitled an Act to restrain vagrancy. "Hosack ap-. peared before Mr. Parker,. Resident Magistrate at Oamaru, on December'3l, swer the charge. The . evidence of the t prosecutrix was then given, and judgment reserved. On January 4 accused . appeared to receive judgment, on which oc--, casion Messrs. Hassell and Shrimski were als6 on the J Bench, together with Mr. Parker. The prosecutrix was then further: examined, the Justices retired, ,and, : after some deliberation, the accused was ordered to enter into his own recognisances to appear before the Resident Magistrate at Oamaru when called upon to receive judgment. The learned counsel contended that the evidence adduced at the trial .disclosed no offence contrary to ' the" 'Vagrant i Act;. that the Magistrates who pronounced judgment had only heard part of the case.;. and, further, that they had no jurisdiction to require the defendant to enter- into, his recognisance to appear-before the Resident Magistrate's Court at Oamaru, ~. . ■ Hia Honor said that he would be sorry to say that Justices had'no, power-tb order a defendant to find sureties to appear when, called upon, because their having such power was making their jurisdiction elastic in a safe direction. He was, however, of opinion that the plaintiff in the case then before the Court was entitled to a prohibition on one ground: that was, that the conviction was made by a person who did not hear the whole case.

In this case Mr. Haggitt applied to the Court to make absolute a rule nisi for a writ of prohibition against restraining them from proceeding further in the case. Mr. Haggitt stated that Hosack had been in the habit of visiting the house of the informant in the case for the purpose of paying his addresses to a younglady who was living with her. Hosack was a respectable man, living in Oamaruj and had been for .ajong.time a-wejeome visitor at the house of, Miss Alport, who was the,friend of the lady to whom he was"paying his addresses. (Nevertheless shefchose to lay an informal ,tion against ,himi and was charged, before the Resident Magistrate at Oamaru .with "being a rogue and a vagabond; He (Mr. Haggitt) submitted that it was never'intended that the Vagrant Act should apply' in such cases.

His Honor said that the Legislature of New Zealandmight be so stringent a moralist as to intend to say, "If you come about my house contrary to my wish, though your object is not to steal my fowls, but to steal the affections of my daughter, you are a rogue and a vagabond."