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Manawatu Standard, Volume XII, Issue 1726, 5 June 1886, Page 2

An extraordinary defence was set np at the Sydney Police Court by a man named Michael Desmond, who was sued by his wife for maintenance. Desmond stated that he had been sentenced to death by Sir James Martin, which sentence was commuted to imprisonment, for life. After serving thirteen ytars his exemplary conduct gained him his release, and he pleaded that having been sentenced to death he was dead to the world and had no wife. He asserted that so rare a legal poiut had never been submitted to any Judge or Magistrate, and that uo Court m the world had jurisdiction m such a case. The Magis. trate declined, however, to regard Desmond as a dead man, seeing that sentence.of death had not been carried out, and ordered him to pay 5s weekly tor the support of his wife. The allotment of sections m the Feilding Smajl Farm Association was made on Saturday afternoon. About eighty out of the ninety members were present. The Feilding Association are the first m the field to allot their sec tions, and a large number of the selectors are going up to inspect their property at once, many of whom intend commencing to fell some bush immediately. The block of land taken up by this association comprises 11,000 acres of exceedingly good land, and is for the most part nearly flat and very lightly timbered. It is situated m what is known as the Upper Manawatu Block, bounded on the north and east by the Oroua River, and is within the boundaries of tha Kiwitea Road Board District. At present the best road to the Block is up the bed of the river, but a road is shortly to be formed from the Kirabolton-road to the Oroua fiiver through the block taken up by the Palmeroton Association, and when that is made the settlers will have a good road to within a mile and a half of the block which is about twenty-six miles from Feilding. The township, which covers 125acre8 of land, is situated m the centre of the block, and is cut up m . quarter-acre sections' in the centre and and acre sections outside ; and adjoining the'towuship is a reserve for a park and r racrention ground sixty acres m extent. There are altogether about. 1000 acres reserved by Governraeut for education, cemetery, gravel, and other purposes. .