LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 13, 14 September 1915, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

An incident in connection with the arrival of a large party of wounded soldiers at Sydney is recorded in the Daily Telegraph; While the wounded soldiers were living their names checked as they filed down the gangway, a raw-boned young man with his sleeves rolled up, espied some of them' he knew. "Glad to get back. Jack?" he asked of one, A rejoinder quickly came back from the bunch, "No, no." "When did you come back?"' was!- the very frank question put to the first questioner. He slid away almost immediately, and one of the wounded boys learne.l later that he had offered his services, and had been accepted. « A case, the first of its kind in Goredistrict at al| events, came before Mr H. A. Young, S.M., at Waikaia on Tuesday (says the Mataura Ensign), when Walter Fowler was charged with, in. delivering 200 sacks of oats in; two trucks containing 100 sacks each at Waipounaniu, that he did inake a false statement a s to the quantity by stating in consignment note that 102 sacks .were contained in each truck. Defendant pleaded guilty, and Constable Schruffer said that defendant had at once admitted the offence .stating that he thought some of the bags 'might be overweight, and. that was why he increased the number of the bags. Mr Henderson, for the defendant, said that defendant, had done a foolish thing and must suffer. He (defendant) had advised the consignees at Dunedin that there were 102 as in the consignment note. The weights of the 100 sacks wt>re under* the regulation weight, but defendant had no opportunity of weighing them,and thinking they' might exceed the regulation weight he had called them 102. The Railway Department had not been defrauded in any way, as full railage'had been paid. The maximum penalty was a fine of £5Qj but it wai submitted that this was a case where defendant had acted ignorantly and foolishly and without intent to defraud, and that a conviction without a fine would* meet the case. As the police did not press for a penalty but wished it to go forward to the public that any similar ca.se would be pressed, his Worship recorded a conviction and ordered defendant to pay 7s costs.