SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 305, 3 February 1910, Page 5

SUPREME COURT.

WELLING lON SESSIONS. By Teleg. Press' Association. Wellington, Wednesday. The criminal .sessions opened to-day before Mr. .Justice Chapman, who said in the course of his charge to the lira ml Jury, that the list of cases set down was neither very long nor very j complicated. At the same time there j were some serious cases where persons abnormally constituted had interfered with young persons of either sex. There I was a case where a man was charged | with wounding his son-in-law. Certainly there was a sentimental aspect of the case, but the jury was not entitled to consider this, 'there was also a case where a man was charged with wilfully Setting lire to his house. The only other ease outside >ome ordinary charges of assault and robbery was one where a man was charged with selling (m obscene publication (N.Z. Truth). The article complained of referred to old stale filth raked up from twenty years ago. He asked the jury to pay particular attention to the style in which the article was written, and also to see whether there was any bona lido reason for ('.ibli-hing s'ueh matter. Rdwin K«>wills, on two charges of theft, was sentenced to twelve months' Imprisonment. [lcnarc Downes, for breaking and entering and theft received IS months, .lames Smith, a youth, for theft, forgery, and uttei ■ing, was ordered to come up for sentence when called on. William llarry, for theft, received six months, Arthur Planning, for forgery ami uttering, received twelve months. Harry Rowles, breaking and entering aim tacit, was' sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment. Wellington. Last Night, At the Supreme Court the jury, in the case against Cecil .Meyriek, charged with committing an unnatural offence, found that accused was not of sound mind, and the judge ordered that he he detained in an asylum during the pleasure of the Minister. (ACTION AGAI'NST A STAKE HOLDER Gisborne, Wednesday. .Judgment was delivered in the Supreme Court in an action Peterson v. v \Yebb, involving £412 stake money in to foot race for £424. The dispute kirose as jbo the bona fides' of the race 'and plaintiff sued for return of the stake money which had been paid i Over. Judge Cooper decided that de- | fondant, who was stake holder, received the stakes as agent for Griffin. t;ie winfer of the race and paid them in ; good faith. Judgment went for defend- ; fint.