MAGISTERIAL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2317, 20 August 1880, Page 2

MAGISTERIAL.

TI3IAUU—THIS DAT,

(Before 11. Beetham, Esq., 8.M.) DKUXKKXXKSS. A first offender was fined ss. A second inebriate was fined 10s,with the alternative of IS hours’ imprisonment. A second charge of resisting a constable in the execution of his duty was dismissed. a now. William Brown alias Dunn, was charged with assaulting his landlady, a boarding-house keeper of Pleasant Point. Mr Hamcrslcy appeared for the prosecutrix, and stated that this was no ordinary case of assault, the accused bad behaved more like a wild beast than anything else, and he (Mr Hamcrslcy) would ask that ho might, in the event of a conviction, be severely punished. Ann Huberts,, the prosecutrix,deposed that' the accused had been boarding at her house. On Tuesday last ho said he wanted to have a row with the other boarders. Witness told him to take her advice and keep quiet. He then left the house, but returned later on and again became quarrelsome and abusive, and witness remonstrating with him, he struck her twice on the head, using at the same time very disgusting language. Witness remembered nothing after she received the blows, as she became unconscious and was laid up in bed until jmsterday. The accused was not sober at the time he assaulted her.

Joseph Roberts, a son of the last witness, a lad o'; about twelve years of age, deposed to hearing the accused say lie would run a knife through his mother’s heart, and witnes’s too, if he got a chance. John Shaw, also boarding at the prosecutrix’s house, deposed to the quarrelsome conduct of the accused on the day in question. He came to witness’s bed room and wanted him to drink a glass of beer, and on his refusing to do so, he threw the beer at witness’s bead, and afterwards threw a glass of water after it. The accused had been drinking, but was not drunk at the time of the assault.

The accused pleaded that he was so drunk on the Tuesday that he did not know what he was about.

The .Magistrate, addressing the accused, told him that he had been guilty of a very serious offence, for which drunkenness was no excuse whatever, lie might have easily committed murder. There was a great deal too much of this drunken rowdyism, and as a warning to others that they were not at liberty to madden themselves with liquor and then plead that as an excuse, he would be sentenced to two months’ imprisonment with hard labor.

CIVIL CASK. Spalding v Slow. Claim, .£ld 10s. Mr White for plaintiff ; Mr Tosswill for defendant.

-lodgment, which had been reserved in this ease from the last sitting of the court, was now given for defendant for the amount claimed.