RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4395, 21 April 1875, Page 3

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Tuesday, Apkil 20. (Before J. C. Crawford, Esq., E.M.) ASSAULT. John Burna was charged with assaulting and beating Jane Rowley on Monday afternoon last. Plaintiff, who ia a daughter of Professor Rowley, hairdresser, stated on oath that on Monday afternoon she was round the rocks near the baths. - She sat down with Bome children who were in her company, and shortly after the prisoner came and sat down i beside her. He asked her (pointing to a, ship), what vessel that was, to which she replied that she did not know. She then got up, and intended to go away, but the prisoner caught her by the dres3, tearing it, and pulling her to the ground. [The dress was exhibited in court.] Ultimately she succeeded in getting away, when she ran to Mrs. Meech. She did not know whether prisoner was drunk or sober. Mrs. Meech deposed that her daughter, in company with Miss Rowley and other children, were amusing themselves in the vicinity of the baths on Monday afternoon. Shortly after they had left her house she heard screams ; she went out, and saw the children running toward her. They told her ■what had happened, and she immediately went in chase of the prisoner. Overtaking him, she asked him why he had assaulted the child, which he denied. She seized him, but he got away and ran up the hill, and hid himself in the scrub. After a short time, with the assistance of a younc; man, prisoner was discovered and Becured. He begged thern to take no notice of what had happened, but he was handed over to the custody of the police. Inspector Atchison pressed for the full penalty allowed by law. His Worship told prisoner to think himself lucky that the offence had not reached the stage of an indictment, but he would enforce the"fulle3t punishment the Act allowed for an offence of the nature, namely, two months' imprisonment with hard labor. PROTECTION OKDER. Henrietta Needham, of the Taita, applied for a protection order against her husband, Robert Needham, who did not appear. In answer to questions put by the magistrate, she stated she had been married seven years, and had four children, one of whom had died ; that her husband had been an habitual drunkard since before Christmas last 4 that on the Bth February he had beaten her and cut her face with a pint pot, and for these reasons she had applied for a protection order. On Saturday last her husband took two of the children, and vowed that the next she would hear of them and him would be their death. She would like to have all the children, and it was not her intention to trouble her husband for any contribution towards their support. Applicant admitted that she had been, and was then, cohabiting with another man. The application was adjourned till Thursday, when Constablo Lyster, of the Hutt, will fee examined as to the character of applicant's husband. There were a few unimportant undefended civil cases.