A SLANDERER PUNISHED.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2181, 15 March 1880, Page 3

A SLANDERER PUNISHED.

A curious case is reported by the “Argus” to have been heard at the Echuca Police Court recently, in which Mrs Yenctia Woods, licensee of the Council Club Hotel, summoned Andrew Kane for using insulting language calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. Mirs "Woods has been aicsident of Ecbuca for live years, during which time it has constantly _ been Honored that she was identical with Mrs Kinder, who in the year 18(3(3, with an accomplice named Bertrand, murdered her husband at North Shore, near Sydney, New South Wales. These rumors have had great effect on Mrs Woods s business which has fallen away in consequence. She has been shunned bj' residents, and was always the object ol much curiosity if she walked abroad. No allegations were ever laid against her but that she was M.rs Kinder, and through a supposed likeness she has been leading a most painful existence. Although these rumors often reached her cars, she could never trace them to the author. In the present instance Kane said to her face that ho had paid Is to see her portrait in New Zealand. Mrs Woods clearly demonstrated that she was not Mrs Kinder, and respectable witnesses proved that she was a respectable resident of Melbourne at the time of the Sydney murder. The police magistrate also stated that he knew Mrs Woods was not Mrs Kinder, and denouncing Kane’s conduct as cowardly and brutal, he fined him £5, with heavy costs. Kane, not paying the fine, was sent to gaol for tAvo months.