RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 304, 10 December 1862, Page 5

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Tuesday, December 9. (BeforeA. 0. Strode, Esq., R.M.. T. A. Mansford, Esq., R.M., and C. Logic, Esq., J.P.) Drunkenness.—Richard Miles, charged with being habitually a drunkard, and with having been twice previously convicted during the preceding twelvemonths, was sent.to gaol for a month's hard labor. John Jones was fined 20s and costs: or, in default of payment, to be imprisoned 48 hours. A uisances.— Inspector Nimon reported nuisances to haye been abated in the cases, of S. E. R. Jones, H P. Morse, -W. Osborne, D. White, and L. Lewis. James Mackay was allowed until Thursday. George U Dnscoll and John Flanigan were each fined 203 and costs. ; " i James Wilson was fined 2s 61 and costs for depasturing a horse on the public road, in Cumberlandstreet.

Charge of being Illegally at Large.—Peter Sherry was once more brought up on remand, charged with being a prisoner of the Crown illegally at large from Tasmania. , ° Sub Inspector Weldon asked for a further remand tor a week. There had been no steamer from Melbourne during the last week, nor had there been any other means of receiving a reply from the authorities ot lasmamaas to the position held by the prisoner xn that colony. Mr Barton said he should bg able to prove that fcherry was pardoned, on condition that he left Tasmania ; but the formal document had unfortunately been destroyed, through an accident to a box in which *J waS:. Even though the Magistrates were satisfie-i that if m Tasmania the prisoner would again be a convict, they had no right to send him back. Job* Drinkfield stated that he knew Sherry in Tasmania as a colonially emancipated man, three or four years ago. In Janu -«ry last he went back to Hobart Town, saw him in a prison gang, a »d learned that he had got three months for something. A colo mally emancipated man ranked as a ticket-of-leave man so long as he remained in the same colony. If Sherry returned to Tasmania now, he would get six months for coming back. Ann Sullivan, on whose information, the prisoner was arrested for being illegally at large, said that bherry's last sentence was three months for being out of his district; and if he did not leave Tasmania when that was over, he was to get six months. They went to the police office and he got his " clearance." He wanted to go to Sydney, but was told to go to Otago. ,

Mr Barton submitted that however reprehensible might be the conduct of the Tasmanian authorities, Sherry ought not to sufier. Those authorities perhaps ought to be before the Court, but Sherry ought not. . . R

Mr Strode wished they were. Sullivan had sworn that in Tasmania, Sherry was sentenced for life. .Mr Barton: She equally proves that he was conditionally pardoned. Mr Strode said the . magistrates desired to know what Sherry'i real position was; and that could only be done by a communication from the Tasmanian authorities, seeing that the man could not produce any document from them.

Mr Barton argued at some length that Sherry could not be sent back and ought to be at once liberated. He had not offended against the law here. If he was a criminal in Tasmania, let the Court there be moved to issue a warrant for hij apprehension, and upon that warrant, backed by a magistrate here, let him be returned to. Tasmania. But the being out of the colony, which was here alleged as an offence, would not be so regarded there. In fact, the conditions were reversed; he was told *'■ Stop out of this colony and you are a free man; come back and you are a, convict." 7

Mr Strode said that the Magistrates were decidedly of opinion that there was enough before them to warrant the- prisoner being detained under the provisions of the Act of George 111, by virtue of which he was arrested. He would be remanded for a week; But bail wbu'd be accepted, it two-good sureties in LSQ each were found, with the prisoner's own recognisances for LiOO. <- ; ;