IMPORTANT CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1811, 3 November 1888, Page 3

IMPORTANT CASE.

At theßesident Magistrate's Court, Dunedin, on' Wednesday, the Otago Benevolent Institution Trustees sued the South Canterbury Charitable Aid Board to recover £2llos, for groceries and meat supplied to Maggie Sharp from December 1,1887, to September 27,1888. . Mr G. Cook appeared for the plaintiffs, and Sir Eobert Stout (instructed by Messrs Perry and Perry, of Timaru) for the defendants, who' paid £7 7s into Court, which, with £5 13s paid previously, made up £l3, or six months' maintenance at 10s per week Mr Cook said that the ' claim was for relief given to Maggie Sharp.and her children. The claim was made under section 74 of the; Hospital and Charitable institutions Act of 1885, which was as follows: —"If an institution under this Act afford relief to any person coming from beyond the contributing districts in which such institution is situated it shall be lawful for the trustees or the board having the con trol of the institution affording relief to recover from the board of the district from which such person came the entire cost of such relief, provided that the person has resided in the laßt-mentioned district at least six months next before he entered the institution from which he obtained relief." In this case the young woman was an inmate of the Timaru institution for six months or more, and then came to Dunedin. Alfred Clulee, secretary of the Dunedin; Charitable Institution, said the girl went before the Board Jon June Ist, 1887, and had received relief continuously ever since. In evidence it wasj stated that before coming, to Timaru the girl had resided for some time in Oamaru, but got no relief there. In the course of a lengthy rgument, Sir Eobert Stout contended

that as the girl Sharp was in receipt of charitable aid during the whole time she was in South Canterbury it was not free residence, and, therefore, the district was not liable. It would be absurd to say that the South Canterbury people were to be charged for her maintenance for all the time because they did not send her back to her own people at once. Therefore, they said that the term " residence " must be considered at it was in England— viz., as having reference to free residence. He also contended that as Alias Sharp left Timaru to stay for two or three days at Mr Goodman's place, at Cracroft, North Canter- ! bury, this broke her six months' settlement, and rendered the South Canterbury Board non-liable, and threw her on her birth settlement. He submitted that Miss Sharp broke her six months' residence by going to Nerth Canterbury, and South Canterbury was not bound further. This, his second point, he urged, was fatal, and he was not bound to have paid anything into Court; but the South Canterbury Board considered it only honest to pay for six months after having given their word by their Chairman. The sum paid in was the full balance due. He also submitted that under section 74 there was no " entering the institution "j it was simply a case of dispensing outdoor relief. But it was not necessary to argue that point, because he submitted that the other point was fatal. The Magistrate reserved his decision. ;