FALSE PRETENCES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3842, 26 June 1891, Page 2

FALSE PRETENCES.

THICKER BEFORE THE COURT. Walter Tricker was charged in the R.M. Court yesterday afternoon be» fore Colonel Roberts, R.M.,with procuring a horse of the value of £l2 From Henry Dixon, by means of false pretences. - ■ Mr Skipper appeared for the defendant. Henry Dixon, sworn, stated: lam a laborer residing at Maaterton. I know the prisoner. On Wednesday, the 17th, I had a conversation with the accused at Kuripuni about a horse. He came to me and said, " I've got a customer in Masterton for your grey mare." I told him some time previous I had a mare for. sale. He said he had a customer at £l6, and said, " I suppose you'll give me half." I replied, " No,. I won't." He thensaid, " Well, you'll give me fair commission," and I said, "Yes." He stated the customer wished to see the mare at half past seven o'clock that evening, and I consented to his taking her. He said he would bring her back first thing in the morning, or the money. I value the mare at £l2. The'accused did not say he had to go outside the town. If he had said he had to go to Feathers ton I would not have let him have her. I did not authorise the accused to sell her at £3 or £2. The next time I saw the mare was at the stables at the Featherston police station. I have received hack neither the mare nor the money. By Mr Skipper : I might be a cousin of the accused, but I cannot say. He had the mare onc9 before for two or three days, but brought her back. I commissioned him then to sell her, and told him that if he could get £8 for her he could take it. There was nothing said about commission. On Wednesday last, when he saw me, he did not say to whom he was going to sell the mare. Ido not know whether he had a customer for £l6. He said he had. If he had brought the £l6, even up to the time he was arrested, I would have accepted it. By Sergeant Hannan : I would not be satisfied to sell the mare at £3.

Arthur Benjamin Derritt deposed: lam a labourer at Featherston. I know the sccused from having seen him at Featherston on the 19th. I then bought from him a grey mare, saddle and bridle for £B. He gave me a receipt for the money, signed " Herbert Hammond." Mrs Burayard, of the Koyal Hotel, witnessed the receipt. He said he} came from Rangitikei and was a cousiu of William Hammond, of York Farm, Marten. He had come over to see what price horses were fetching. Ha also said he had been down to Martinborough, had spent all his money jn a hotel, and was a "broker," He said, "I must find some money to get back to Rangitikei; I must try and sell the mare." He came to me and offered me the mare, saddle and bridle for £B. I bought them and paid the money. I gave them up afterwards to the constable at Featherston.

By Mr Skipper: I bought the mare on Friday afternoon. I could not say the accused was sober, but he was not drunk then. He looked as though he had been drinking. Re said he was going to Wellington and from there to Wanganui by boat. They would not let him get in the train as he was by this time too drunk. I consider the sum of £3 a low figure for the mare, but I have sold far better mares for less money myself when I have been on the " ran-tan" like he was. I do not think I was taking advantage of a drunken man.

Constable Mullane deposed to the arrest of the prisoner on the 23rd inst., when he denied any knowledge of the affair.

Henry Dixon, re-called, stated in reply to the Bench that the mare in question was his property. For the defence Mr Skipper submitted that the information must • fail, as the evidence did not show that the accused had obtained the mare under false pretences. No person was mentioned by the accused as a customer and there could not therefore be false pretences. The accused, in making a statement, laid he went to the house of Dixon on Wednesday evening and asked him if he had the grey mare for sale, and he replied he bad. He told him he had a customer for her, but did not say where. He brought her down to the stables in Masterton, met the man, and they both saddled their horses and went out to give him three miles of a tret with her. She did not exactly suit him as she broke several times, and he said, "I'll give you nine pounds for her." He (accused) said on his return, if he could not get what he wanted, he would take £9 for her. He went to Mr Coleman Phillips' next morning, but not seeing him went to Feather - ston. He wanted to go on io the Lower Hutt to see a man named Cudby, who kept <* livery stable. In the meantime he saw Derritt. He went in the Royal Hotel and had a "shilling in.' 1 He remembered nothing more till the next morning, when he went to the Hutt by the train and saw Cudby. He returned on M onday night to Masterton and intended going back to Featherston on Tuesday to get the horse, saddle and bridle, when he was arrested. He was quite willing now to pay Dixon for his horse. The accused was then committed to take his trial at the: next sittings of the Supreme Court to be held in Wellington in July. . The hearing of a second charge of the larceny as a bailee of a saddle and bridle, the property of William Hawke, was adjourned till next day.