RESIDENT MAGISTRATES' COURT WESTPORT.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 232, 29 April 1868, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATES' COURT WESTPORT.

Monday, April 27. (Before J. Giles, Esq., R.M.) Drunk.— Robert Hollins was fined 10s. and Frederick Buskin was dismissed with a caution for drunkenness. ASSAULT. Richard Walsh was charged with assaulting one ~W. F. Smith, on the 24th inst.

Complainant said that he was a boatman, and he knew the defendant. On the 24th, witness and defendant were plying for passengers, when the latter told him not to ply for hire, otherwise he would knock his eye out. Defendant was a boatman also. After this he did ply, and defendant then struck him in the face and knocked him down without the least provocation being given. Cross-examined by defendant—-I was sober at the time you struck me. Richard Richardson, another boatman, was called but proved nothing more than that he heard an altercation, and subsequently saw Smith on the ground and defendant standing about five yards distant from him.

Defendant said that there was a sale at the South Spit, and he was waiting for three passengers that the complainant attempted to take away, and said that he would do it again. At the time complainant was the worse for liquor, and Bhoved his face up to defendant, when he (the latter) pushed him away and he fell -down. The magistrate Baid defendant had no right to take the law into his own hands, and fined him 20s and costs.