RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 355, 19 September 1868, Page 4

RESIDENT MAGISTRATE'S COURT.

(Before J. G-iles Esq., E.M.) Friday, Sept. 18, 1868. BIDIXO Otf THE FOOTPATH. Mary Helm was charged with riding on the footpath on Sunday last. Defendant did not deny the fact, but the Magistrate did not consider the offence to be punishable unless she had been first warned by the police, and had then repeated it. She was therefore discharged with a caution. Greta O' Regan was charged with furious riding on the footpath on the same day. Constable Pringle proved, that on Sunday the 13th, a little before five o'clock, he saw defeudant riding up the footpath in Gladstone street, where a number of little children were playing. She was flogging the horse, which was galloping as hard as it could go. The horse could not go on quick enough to please her apparently, for she was flogging it. He considered that children's lives were endangered by the way in which she was riding. Constable Paul corroborated the evidence of the preceding witness as to defendant riding on the footpath, but differed from him as to the pace she was going, saying first that she was trotting, and afterwards on being pressed got up to a canter, but further than that could not be reached. The defendant said that she was riding on the footpath, but that the horse was %o blame, for she could not manage it, and could not pull it into the road. The Magistrate said that the charge was not clearly made out as to defendant riding furiously, for one witness said she was galloping, and another that she was trotting ; as to being on the footpath, the same remarks as in the previous case applied. The charge of furious riding not having been made out, he would dismiss the information and caution the defendant that if cases of furious ridingwere proved he should inflict a heavy penalty.