THE WRONG CHANGE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 157, 2 January 1912, Page 2

THE WRONG CHANGE

YOUNG- MAN'S ADVENTURE. WHAT HE RECEIVED FOR A POUND NOTE. AN UNLOADED REVOLVER. Auckland, December 28. According .to the story told by a young man named: Frederick Warren in the Police Court, he had l an exciting and distinctly unpleasant experience on the evening of Wednesday week. On his way home after spending, a few convivial hours with some boom companions, he called in at a small shop in Albert street, kept ostensibly for the sale of cordials by a woman named, Maigaret Dennis. He made a purchase and tended the woman a £1 note in payment. He asked for his change, and she, having ordered him to clear out, turned round, snatched a revolver from the drawer of a bureau, and <the next instant he found himself looking with alarm rather than interest down into the depths of its threatening muzzle. He turned and fled incontinently, but in the show door he was accosted by a man who struck him, snatched at his watch and chain, and hustled him into the street. Warren, who wais now thoroughly frightened (as he fully believed the revolver was loaded) went in search of the nearest policeman, leaving his change in the custody of Miss Dennis. He found Constable Palmer not veiry far away, and returned with him to the shop. The man who had' assaulted 1 Warren was nowhere to be seen, but the woman, after persistent knocking, opened the door. The constable found the revolver in the drawer, whence Warren said Miss' Dennis had taken it, but the chambers contained no cartridges, and apparently the weapon, which was quite new, had never been used, nor even- loaded.

When the woman entered the witness-' box she gave a very different version of the occurrence. " She said that when young Warren came into her place she treated him honorably and fairly, and gave him the correct change for his £1 note, but he wasn't satisfied with that and demanded the return of the whole £l. She refused to give him any more change, and then he struggled with her and handled her roughly, bruising her breast in his endeavor to get back his money. Mr. A. N. Moodie, who appeared for the woman Dennis, urged that even if the complainant's statement—that defendant had presented a revolver at him —were true, the fact that the weapon was unloaded was in law a bar to an information alleging assault. Sub-Inspector Hendry replied that if the person at whom the weapon was presented had reason to believe it was loaded the case under the Act was one of assault. His Worship held that an assault had been committed in terms of the information, and sentenced the woman Dennis ■to one month's imprisonment with haird laibor. He, however, agreed to state a case for appeal on points of law, on the accused entering into a bond to prosecute the appeal.