MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 304, 14 April 1877, Page 2

MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

THIS DAY. (Before T. Vv. Parker, Esq., R.M.) LARCENY AS A BAILER. A colored man named William Brown was brought lip on remand from Dunedin, and charged with appropriating to his own use five white shirts, valued at £2 2s. 6d., the property of Christian Meseh. Prisoner pleaded not guilty. The prosecutor was put in the witness box, and deposed :lam a cook. lam boarding at the Queen's Hotel. I know the accused. On the 21st MfU"ch**.i;iSt I gave him five white shirts to keep for me until I returned from the country, and told him that if he left the town before I came back to leave them with Mi'. Marlcham. When I came back on the Friday following 1 went A o the Queen's and asked for the prisoner. I was t.i-i told he had left there the day after I hy.& gone up country. I asked for my property and it could not be founts. —the prisoner had not delivered it to Mr. Markham. A white shirt was produced and sworn to by witness as his property. Cross-examined by prisoner : I bought three shirts in a shop in Thames-street, and I left another two with you before. I never said I would make you a present of a shirt. I left them in your charge, and told you to leave them with the landlord when you went away. James Markham was then called, and deposed : I am landlord of the Queen's Hotel. I know the prisoner. He was in my employ about six weeks. He left it a fortnight ago. He did not hand me any shirts before he left ; but lie told me there were some at the washerwoman's belonging to jwsecutor. Alex. Henderson deposed : I am a detective ofiicer, stationed at Dunedin. I arrested the prisoner (by virtue of a warrant from this Court) on the night of the 9th inst., in Dunedin. I explained the nature of the charge to him, and he admitted being the person referred to in th§ warrant. He stated he had not stolen the shirts.' The shirt now produced accused was wearing at the time of arrest. He said the prosecutor had presented it to him. He gave one of the shirts to a man known by the name of Jack, who was living at the Queen's Hotel, and the remainder was given to a man to take to the wash. This closed the case for the prosecution. For the defence prisoner called a witness named Michael Downie, who very curtly stated that he knew nothing at all about the transaction. The prisoner then stated that lie could take his oath that the prosecutor gave him the shirt which he was wearing when arrested, and said that he had sent one to the wash, and that the remainder had been left in prosecutor's box. After hearing all the evidence, the Magistrate remanded prisoner until Monday, the 16fch.