RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4768, 4 July 1876, Page 3

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Monday, July 3. (Before J- C. Crawford, Esq., E.M.) VAGRANCY. Thomas Kearney was charged with vagrancy. He pleaded guilty. It appeared from evidence that defendant had been loafing about the city in a very neglected condition, drinking and begging money. The Bench inflicted a sentence of one month’s imprisonment. BURGLARY. Joseph Hemsley was brought up on remand, charged with breaking into the European Hotel, and stealing therefrom a cashbox, containing money, jewellery, and papers. The following evidence was taken Mrs. Hausman: On the 24th of last month I went to bed at 1.30 a.m. _ I took the cashbox upstairs, {and placed it in a chest of drawers in my bedroom. The box contained a five-pound note, two or three one-pound notes, a sovereign, a half-sovereign, and seven or eight pounds of silver. It contained also a gold scarf-ring set with six diamonds, and a gold chain and locket. My husband’s coat was hangin" on the back of the door in the same room. Before I retired I saw all the doors fastened. In the morning about a quarter to seven, I found the room door open, the chest of drawers open, and the cashbox gone. I found my husband's key, which opens the drawer of the box in which the scarf-ring was, lying on the chest of drawers. I afterwards missed the coat. The backdoor and window were found open. I had seen the prisoner in the bar some days before this robbery. I identify, by its marks, a sixpence, produced, as having been in the cash-box. There was also a shilling with a horseshoe mark on it. Alfred Young, night watchman at the Empire Hotel; I saw the prisoner one morning about a week ago. He came into the house between six and seven in the morning. He asked for a drink. There was another with him. He had some drink, but I stopped him from having more. He shouted for others. He first paid in silver, and then changed a note. He had plenty of silver to pay for the drinks without changing the note. Detective Farrell: In consequence of information, I made search for the prisoner on the 26th. I went to a boarding-house at Pipiteapoint. He was in a bedroom upstairs tying up his swag, which I examined, and found in it the coat produced. He said he had purchased it in Napier. On searching I found on him a purse containing 13s. in silver, including the marked sixpence produced. He said that on Friday night he slept among the timber on the wharf. He had only come to the boarding house on Saturday. I took the money, and on showing it to Mrs. Hausman, she identified the sixpence. She also mentioned the loss of a coat. .

By the prisoner : You were in the diningroom when I first saw you, and I asked you to show me your swag. On the second time I found you upstairs and a man with you. Matthew Harrison, cook at the European Hotel : On Saturday morning I got up about twenty minutes past five. X saw some loose paper on a beach in the kitchen, and on sorting it up a sovereign dropped out. I found the divisions of the window reversed. The part that should have been up was down. I shut the window properly on the previous night. Prisoner reserved his defence, and The Bench then committed him for trial at the next sittings of the Supreme Court. CIVIL CASES. Sinclair v. McDonald—Claim of £1 10s. Judgment for amount and costs. Same v. Laurent—Claim £1 2s. Judgment for amount and coats. Wellington Co-operative Society v. Kells—Claim £1 Bs. Bd. Judgment for amount and costs. There were fourteen other cases, but they were either settled, withdrawn, or_ in some other way disposed of without coming before the Court.