SUPREME COURT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2717, 10 December 1889, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

(BV TELEGIiAPH.—OWN COIIRESPONDKNT.) Auckland, Monday. In openinp the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court to-day, the Judge said when he last had the pleasure of addressing the Grand Jury the calendar was unusually small and offences unusually light. It is just the contrary on this occasion, for there are a very large number of charges, no less than 30 indictments, including 30 persons, and some of the cases are of a very serious description. In the course of his charge he remarked favourably upon the alteration of the law which raised the age of consent to fourteen years, but he expressed a doubt about the wisdom of the law in its present shape enabling prisoners to make statements in their own defence. Daniel B. Orchard was brought up on the eight charges against him of having forged and uttered promissory notes, and one charge of having uttered a forged bill. He pleaded guilty on every indictment. Mr K Cooper, who appeared for accused, asked that the provisions of the First Offenders Probation Act be extended in his ci'se, but His Honor, Judge Connolly declined the application. Mr Cooper said that the prisoner, who was a bill broker, well known in Auckland for many years, had been induced in an incautious moment to endorse certain bills, and when they could not be met he gave fraudulent renewals to aroid the stigma of bankruptcy. The prisoner had not benefited by these forgeries, the money he had obtained had gone to pay interest. His Honor lia passing sentence commented on the previous good character of the accused, and said his task was a most painful one, he sentenced Orchard to seven years' penal servitude Edward Rangiura, the native whose arrest recently for breaking and entering caused some seusation because of the prisoner's connection with several religious bodies, was brought before the Court. He pleaded guilty to the charge. His Honour refused to release him on probation, and sentenced hiin to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. Wilson Perry, charged with burglary at the house of John Chadwick, Tamanga, was found not guilty, and the prisoner was discharged.