OPENED LOVE-LETTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 133, 27 November 1911, Page 6

OPENED LOVE-LETTER.

AND A SUPREME COURT CASE. Auckland, November 22. The interception of a love letter from a girl in llikuningi to her sweetheart in Taranaki was the principal circumstance in an unusual case that camo before iiis Honor Mr. Justice Chapman in the Supreme Court. Charles Berry Simmonds, a .smart-looking youth, who pleaded not guilty, was charged on several counts that at Hikurangi, on June 1 lust, he did, contrary to his duty, suffer a postal packet to be opened by one Joel Rowley, and that between March, il(!)00, and June, 1011, he opened several postal packet®. Simmonds, according to .the statement by the Crown Prosecutor, was employed as a cadet and messenger jtt the Hikurangi .post office on June li last, when a letter was posted by a young lady named Daisy Deeming to her sweetheart in Taranaki. It transpired that Miss Deeming had been keeping company with another young man named Rowley, a porter on the railway, but she had "cooled oil'," and was in correspondence with a Robert Craig in Taranaki. While her letter was in the post office it was alleged that the prisoner allowed Rowley to take it, open it out, and read it, and then gum it up again. That the letter hud been opened was discovered after Rowley went to the girl's house and said. "You are a nice one to write to Bob. You said you would not." The girl thought these remarks strange and suspicious, and enquiries led up to the discovery that her letter had been opened.

For the defence it was contended that the Crown had not proved that 'SIIII- - had suffered the letter to be open•4. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and sentence was deferred.

Joel Victor Rowley, who had pleaded guilty, came up for sentence on a charge of opening a postal packet. His Honor said lie would deal with accused in the course >of a few days. William Holmes Henderson, a youth of 17 years of age, who had been a messenger in the Hilutrangi post office, cafte up for sentence on a charge of destroying circulars. His Honor said he would deal with accused in the course of a few days.