SWEATING SOVEREIGNS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VIII, Issue 436, 20 February 1875, Page 3

SWEATING SOVEREIGNS.

We take the following from the Melbourne " Daily Telegraph:"— At the City Police Court yesterday, Joseph Tsrrael, a man about thirty-five years of age, lately employed as a traveller by Messrs Soloman, fancy jewellers, was charged on remand with " impairing, diminishing, and lightening the Queen's current coin, to wit, sovereigns, and uttering the same.'' Mr Gurner, Crown Solicitor, prosecuted the prisoner ; Mr. Gillot appearing for the defence. The evidence against the prisoner showed that on the 21st of last month he went to the shop of a bookseller named Collins, in Smith-street, Collingwood, and asked for change of a sovereign which was given him. After prisoner left the shop Mr. Collins weighed the sovereign, and finding it light he put the matter in Detective Hartney's hands. Mr. Marriott, the receiving teller of the London Chartered Bank, stated that in December last the prisoner lodged £50 to his credit in the bank, upon which he subsequently drew to the amount of £45. The prisoner, on the 10th or 11th of January, wont to James Phillips, a pawnbroker in Bourke street, and offered 13Jdwt of fine gold for sale, asking 4s per dwt for it, but in consequence of the price the gold was not bought. The prisoner on next day sold Phillip Phillipson loz 19dwt 6gr. The gold was afterwards found to contain a mixture in it of copper and metal similar to what woxild be in sovereign gold if melted down. Mr. Hunt, bullion master at the Mint, examined several of the sovereigns passed by the prisoner, and found them to be sweated of gold to the amount of about 20grs each. Several witnesses gave evidence of the prisoner having passed light sovereigns with them, and it was shown that at the rate of sweating veiy nearly the amount of gold sold to Phillipson would be obtained from £45, the sum drawn by the prisoner from the bank. The prisoner was committed for trial, bail being refused.

Feloniously stealing one sausage. This is the tremendous offence on which three young men were brought up at the Surrey sessions recently for being concerned in. The eldest was only eighteen and the youngest fifteen, and what do our readers suppose was the measure of punishment inflicted for this diabolical crime committed in Bermondscy 1 The eldest (eighteen) was sentenced to nine months' hard labor ; the next (seventeen) to fifteen months' hard labor, and three years police supervision ; and the youngest (fifteen) six months' hard labor. In another case a lad of fifteen, charged with stealing two sixpences, was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. There is an instance at Poverty Bay of the longevity of horses in New Zealand, where there is a mare thirty-five years of age. This fine old mare has a foal at foot at the present time, and shows few signs of breaking up.