RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4401, 28 April 1875, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT.

Tuesday, April 27. LARCENY. William Baker and George Burt, two sailors of the Sunbeam, were charged with stealing two tumblers from the New Zealander Hotel. On the previous evening the two prisoners went into the hotel, and being the worse for liquor were refused drinks. The spirit of revenge being strong upon them, each picked up a tumbler from the counter and walked outside, where Baker, out of pure aggravation, dashed his to the ground and smashed it. Burt put his tumbler under his coat; and these proceedings being witnessed by a constable, the pair were walked off to the lock-up. His Worship regarded the affair as a drunken freak, and committed the prisoners for fortyeight hours. VAGRANCY. Francis- G. Heward, a troublesome individual who- arrived in the colony from Toronto about four years ago, again made his appearance in court on the above charge, after a considerable absence- from town. During his former residence in Wellington he was constantly in the hands of the police, who attended to him so carefully that Heward at last sought fresh fields and proceeded up the coast. In the course of his travels he still exhibited a strong penchant for unconsidered trifles, and invariably walked off with the blanket of the generous settler who might offer him a bed. He narrowly escaped arrest for a theft of this land at Porinia, the owner of the blanket preferring to avoid the trouble of a journey to town to prosecute. Upon' his return to town Sergeant Monaghan gave him. a caution and advised him to clear out, but the warnin'-'-was unheeded. The prisoner in fact went eo far as to ask an innocent and confiding policeman to supply him with cash to get a night’s lodging, and it being found that he had interviewed several other people with a similar object, he was arrested upon the present charge 1 Prisoner said he had not been used to hard work, and could find no employment suited to his capabilities. ■ His Worship said there was plenty of work for hundreds of men on the railway works at the Upper Hutt, and with a view to giving the prisoner an opportunity to-“ get his hand in,” he would be sentenced to a month’s imprisonment, with hard labor. The civil cases heard were of no public .interest.