ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1163, 10 April 1884, Page 3

ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES.

The prisoner Goodward who was found guilty of rape on Ellen Payne in the AuckDomain, was sentenced to five years, imprisonment and two floggings of twentyfive lashes each.

At the Supreme Court, Wellington, on Monday, Graham Mayae was acquitted on a charge of indecent assault. P. C. Watty pleaded guilty to two indictments for forgery Four other charges were withdrawn. A seduction case, in which £250 damages were claimed, was heard at the Supreme Court, Dunedin on Tuesday before Mr Justice Williams. The plaintiff was Terence Dunne a commercial traveller, and the defendant Hugh Mark Morris, a photographic printer. The plaintiff alleged that his daughter Mary Christina, aged 18 years , bore to the defendant a child which died on February 20th last. The defendant denied allegations in the plaintiff’s statement of claim. Both were employed in the American photographic studio. Judge Williams found for the plaintiff, damages £l5O. On Sunday the body of a man, name unknown, (says the Press) was found in the Waiau river about seven miles from the township, and brought to the hotel, where an inquest will be held. The deceased was supposed to have stayed at Rotherham, where he stated he had come from Christ church. The police considered he was a man of weak intellect, from the enquiries made. He is about sfb Bin, dark hair and full beard and moustaches, tatooed on both wrists, w’as dressed in a brownish grey suit and striped grey trousers. A man named David Griffin, was seriously injured by a fall of earth in Timaru last Monday night. He had his thigh and shoulder blade broken, and was badly bruised all over. He was t aken to the Hospital, where he is progressing favorably. Mr John Reid, in the employ of Messrs Findlay, timber merchants, Dunedin, while measuring some timber that was being loaded from the barquentine Enterprise, at Port Chalmers wharf, was struck by a piece of black pine, 14 feet long, fracturing his skull. Deceased was fifty years of age and unmarried.

Ihe Press says that on Sunday, about 8.30 p.m., a man named H. McKinley, employed on the railway extension contract, was severely burned in his tent at the Waikari. Fortunately tbe fire was noticed and the unfortunate man dragged out in time to save his life. He was severely burned across the body and side, and was promptly attended by Mr Pinching, chemist, who assisted to allay his sufferings. A saloon passenger by the Ringarooma which is now in Auckland dropped down down dead at live o’clock on Tuesday evening, off the Island of Kawau, the supposed cause of death being ‘ delirium tremens.’ Deceased is a son of one of the Henty Bros., of Melbourne, and was manager of the Bank of New Zealand Agency at Sydney. On Saturday a man named John Williams, of Ashburton, died suddenly in a tent on Dr. Trevor’s farm Lissmore. Deceased had been working with a threshing machine for Mr Weymouth Roberts. He ate a hearty breakfast but suddenly expired at eleven o’clock. Deceased had been suffering from heart disease, and was only recently discharged from the Hospital, He leaves a wife and family in Ashburton. A woman named Emily Cane has been arrested for stealing sundry glasses and vessels for holding flowers from a grave in the Christchurch cemetery. At the Dunedin Police Court on Monday, Nora Welsh was committed for trial for abandoning a child on Pine Hili road. It appears that the cries of the infant attracted the notice of a passer by, but as the night was dark it was only after half an hour’s search he discovered it.

A telegram from Waipawa states that a man named Hans Anderson poisoned himself with strychnine at Makeretu on Tuesday. An inquest was held at Opunake on Tuesday on Louisa Marian Plumbridge and her children, who died from poison administered by Mrs Plumbridge on Sunday evening last. The deceased woman was 40 years of age She had a daughter by her first husband, Captain Higgins, about 24 years of age, living in the King Country. Latterly deceased had talked about poisoning herself, in consequence of love troubles, but her brother thought it was only gammon. The jury, after retiring twice, returned a verdict that deceased died through poison administered by her own hand, but the evidence did not prove her state of mind at the time the poison was taken.

Patrick McEvedey, a farmer near Leoston, (Canterbury), late owner of Trumpeter, took strychnine last Tuesday night and died the following morning.