PETERSFIELD PETTY SESSIONS.
TUESDAY.—Present: Hon. J. J. Carnegie (chairman), and J. Waddington, Esq.
Mr. Edwin Martin, of Horndean, and Mr. John Richardson, of Petersfield, each applied for and obtained a license to deal in game.
James Tribe and William Berry, both of the Stroud, Eastmeon, were bound over respectively in the sum of 30l. to keep the peace towards each other for the space of one year.
William White, of Bramshott, was fined 3s., with costs 9s. 6d., for being drunk and riotous, at Liphook, on Monday, July 6th.
STEALING A GUN, &c., BY A FARM SERVANT.—James Pratt was brought up in custody, charged with stealing, on Wednesday, July 1st, a gun, a powder-flask, and shot pouch, with strap attached, value 2l., the property of Mr. George White Newman, of Heath-farm, Buriton.—Complainant deposed: I have been in the habit of keeping a single-barrel gun, powder-flask, and shot pouch in a hovel on my farm, for the use of myself and one of my men, named John Whitehart, to shoot rooks. I saw them there on Tuesday, the 30th of June, and missed them about four o'clock the next day. Prisoner had been in my employ as an agricultural servant. He left without giving me notice about eight o'clock on the previous Monday night. The gun and other articles now produced are my property. They are worth two pounds.—P.C. John Rodaway deposed: About half-past three on the morning of the 3rd of July, I saw prisoner in the custody of P.C. Abrahams, on a charge of stealing a gun, powder-flask, and shot-pouch. He said he had not got the things, but he would take me to a place and show me where they were. I took him to Barn's-green, at Hambledon, and he pointed to a ditch by the side of the road, and said some of them were in there. I found the flask and pouch, and about 150 yards off, concealed in a ditch in the same meadow, I found the barrel, ramrod, and stock of the gun, all separate. I afterwards found the lock of the gun in a clock case, in the house of prisoner's father. Prisoner told me it was in his coat pocket, but on searching, and not finding it there, his mother told me she had found it in his coat pocket, and had put it into the clock case, where I found it.—Prisoner pleaded guilty, and on being asked by the Chairman if he wished to call anyone to speak to his character, appealed to his late master, the prosecutor, who said the only thing he could say of him was that he took him on to work a month before he really wanted him, in order to secure him for haying and harvest. On the very first day of hay-carting he got drunk and left his service, and the next day he stole the gun. Prisoner was sentenced to six week imprisonment with hard labour.
Hampshire Advertiser 11 July 1868
PETERSFIELD, Saturday, July 11
LEAVING HIS SERVICE AND STEALING HIS MASTER'S GUN.—James Pratt, a young man, late in the service of Mr. George Newman, of Heath Farm, was lodged in the station on Thursday, charged with stealing a gun, powder flask, with shot pouch and strap, the property of his master. It appears that the gun and its appendages had been placed in a shed standing in the centre of the farm, away from any buildings, on Monday, the 29th ult., so as to enable the labourers employed thereabout to shoot the rooks that were laying in a field of peas adjoining. On Wednesday morning the gun was missed, when Mr. Newman at once proceeded to the station, and gave information to the police, upon which Police-constable John Rodaway went to the Harrow publichouse, in the adjoining parish of Steep, where he learnt that the prisoner had been and stated that he "had got into a bit of a row and he must be stepping it." Police-constable Charles Abraham went in pursuit, and apprehended the prisoner and brought him to the station. From information obtained Police-constable Rodaway proceeded to Hambledon, and in the ditch of a meadow he found the stock, barrel, and ramrod, and about 150 yards away the powder flask and shot pouch, and at his father's house, at Barn Green, half a mile from the above, he found the lock in the clock case. On Friday the prisoner was taken before Mr. J. Waddington, and remanded till Monday, when the case was heard before Mr. J. D. Lewis, and the prisoner was committed for trial at Winchester.