NAPIER NEWS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 437, 3 April 1890, Page 2

NAPIER NEWS.

[special to the standard.]

Napier, last night. In the case Dr John McLeod, an application was made yesterday by Mr McLean, solicitor, to the Chief Justice, for the discharge of the prisoner from custody. McLeod had married Mary Manson in Sydney in 187'2, and was alleged to have married Mary Cameron in St. Louis, America, in Miy, 1889. A warrant had been leaned on a charge of bigamy by a New South Wales Magistrate, and a constable was sent over to arrest McLeod under the statute of New South Wales, making a bigamous marriage out of the colony an offence punishable within the colony. The Chief Justice upheld Mr McLean’s contention, that it was ultra vires for the colony of New South Wales to make bigamy committed outside) of the colony an offence punish ihle within it, and accordingly McLeod was brought up this morning at the R.M Court and discharged, but he was immediately re-arrested on a charge of assaulting a girl at Woolhara, N, S.W, three years ago. Mr McLeod asked captain Preece to dismiss the case on the grounds that it was trivial, that the charge was not made in good faith or in the interests of justice, and that it would be oppressive and unjust to send McLeod to New South Wales. Captain Preece said the prisoner was charged with an offence punishable as a felony and cot Id not dismiss the case. McLeod was remanded for a week, and removed to the Napier gaol, pending the result of another application to the Chief Justice for his release.

The Supreme Court action Colonial Bank v. Bennett and Rochtort, executors of the late William Fletcher, for the recovery of £325 and £125. amounts of two promissory notes purporting to have been signed by the deceased, was concluded this afternoon. His Honor’s summing up occupied from 2 o'clock till 3.30, when the jury retired and at about 7.20 returned with a verdict virtually for the plaintiff on all counts. The jury found that the bill for £325 had been altered, but added that there had been contributory negligence on the part of Fletcher. Several points raised for the defendants will be argued at Wellington.