PETERSFIELD
Agent—Mr. G. Duplock
PETTY SESSIONS.—Tuesday.—Present, Sir A. K. Macdonald (Chairman), Sir W. Knighton, Bart., and J. Waddington, Esq.
— A highway rate was signed for the parish of Steep.
— Emma Budd, a girl of about 16, who had been living for some months in the service of Mr. C. S. Atkins, of Eastmeon, was charged with stealing a pair of stockings and some beads, belonging to her mistress. It appeared from the evidence of Mrs. Atkins, that on Wednesday, the 23rd of April, she found a pair of stockings, belonging to herself, in the wash-tub. These stockings she knew were clean on the previous Sunday, as she had seen them on that day under the cushion of the sofa in the sitting room. When she found them in the wash-tub they were very dirty, and she taxed prisoner with having worn them. Prisoner at first denied having done so, but afterwards admitted that she had taken them from under the sofa cushion and worn them. On the following Sunday, owing to other suspicious circumstances, Mr. and Mrs. Atkins examined prisoner’s box in her presence, and there found some beads, which prisoner admitted having cut from a watch-pocket belonging to her mistress, which was kept in a drawer in her (Mrs. Atkins’) bed room. Prisoner was told that her mother and a policeman would be sent for the next morning, but in the course of the night she made her escape from the house and went home, leaving a written paper behind her stating that she was dead in the mill-pond. Prisoner pleased guilty of stealing the beads, but not guilty as to the stockings. The magistrates gave her the benefit of the doubt as to a felonious intention in appropriating the stockings, and sentenced her to a fortnight’s imprisonment with hard labour for stealing the beads. It transpired in the course of the evidence that a number of articles had from time to time been missed by Mrs. Atkins while prisoner was in her service.
— Mr. Thomas Bulbeck, of Clanfield, charged John Gillman with malicious damage to a field of barley by trampling the same on the 8th of the present month. It appeared from the evidence of prosecutor that in the field in question, called the 18 acres, there has been a path trodden by people going to an adjoining copse, but that there was no right of way, and a board had been put up cautioning trespassers, but that notwithstanding such notice defendant had persisted in going through the field, that being the nearest way to his work. Case dismissed.
— John Samways was charged, on the information of P.C. Charles Godfrey, with being drunk at Horndean, on Sunday, May 4th. Fined 5s. and costs 7s. 6d.
— Alfred Benfard, of Compton, was charged with taking nine pheasants’ eggs from a nest. William Haylock deposed: On the 9th of May, about 5 o’clock in the morning, I was watching a pheasant’s nest in a copse called Glasshouse brow, when defendant came along and took the eggs from the nest. I had put the bird off about two hours before, and counted the eggs; there were nine. I followed defendant, and when I got within about 30 yards of him, he looked round and saw me, and put his hand in his pocket and threw away dome eggs. I said, ‟It’s no use; I know how many there are.” I searched him and found five pheasnts’ eggs in his pocket. Fined 3s. each egg and costs 7s. 6d.
— John Powell, of Buriton, was charged with a like offence by William Gumbrell, who deposed as follows: On the 30th of April, about twenty minutes past five, I was lying by a pheasant’s nest in Wolverine field. There were four eggs in it. John Powell came up in company with another man, and said, ‟Here’s a nest with four eggs,” and took them out and put them into his pocket. I then jumped over the hedge and said, ‟Well, John, so you’ve got them.” I searched him and found four eggs in his pocket. Defendant declined saying anything, and a former conviction being proved he was adjudged to pay 4s. each egg and 7s. 6d costs.