SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 199, 12 August 1908, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

AUCKLAND FLEET SirjlNU.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland Tuesday. Tile Supreme Court criminal session opened to-day. Air. Justice Edwards expressed keen regret Ilia I it was ne- 1 eessnry • for tihe Court to sit during ' licet week. lie hud never met a more ' manly, frank, and unspoilt body of 1 gentlemen than the oflicers of the Ame- 1 ricau Xuvy, and we should do our utmost to entertain llicm. lie would ! make tile duties of the jurors as light 1 as possibly to enable thelii to devote as much time as possible to entertaining the American guests. Alluding to the chargws of theft of postal notes laid against several persons, Judge Ed'wards said that the evidence was that

the accused, in common with their ollicoi's, hud had opportunities of committing tile crime. JSeyond Uiat the only evidence was that of handwriting experts, who were prepared to swear that, to the best of their belief, the signatures on tile forged postal notes were signed by the men charged. Expert evidence was always to he received with a certain amount of doubt. WAIOTAI'I) ESCAI'EK KKXTEXt'ED. Auckland, Last 'Night. At the .Supreme Court this atiernoon Thomas Leonard Hasten, alias William Wilson, an athletic looking young man, was indicted on a charge of breaking from custody at Waiotapu on May 10 last. Mr. Tole explained that prisoner was serving a sentence of three years' imprisonment for highway robbery at tile Yvaitopu camp. A number ol prisoners were permit-ted to walk about witiliin certain limits. On May lUtli prisoner left without permission. He was discovered the following day some miles away on tile Napier-Taupo road. A loaded revolver and 30 cartridges were found on the prisoner when ar-

rested by the constable. After prisoner , was liaiuleull'ed he told the constable that had Ire known he was an oilici;,r he would not have taken llini to Taupo that night, that the constable would have got a cartridge at liotorua. Prisoner also boasted that he intended to bail the constable up, take away his revolver, tie the constable to a tree, and get his horse and get clear away. Prisoner elected to give evidence oil his own behalf. The revolver which he had stolen was, he said, loadsd when he broke into the place. It was tire only thing of value in the place, and: of course he took it, intending to turn it into money oil the first opportunity. He had 110 Hlva of using it on the constable. Gross-examined by Mr. xole, the prisoner admitted conviction for theft in l«0o at Blenheim, for robbery in Napier in 1907, and arson at Nelson. The jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of guilty, and his Honor sentenced prisoner to two years' hard labor the sentence to be cumulative on the' sentences he was at present undergoing, remarking that he intended (as he had previously intimated) treating escapes from the prison camp as a serious offence. Prisoners were _ sent to Waiotapu as reward for or incentive to good bdhaviour, and it was quite evident. that they had a fairly good tune [ there.