PETERSFIELD.
ALLEGED EMBEZZLEMENT.—At the Winchester Sessions, JAMES PAINTER, 40, servant, on bail, was indicted for embezzling moneys to the amount of 18s., belonging to Robert Crafts, his master, on the 17th of July. Mr. Bowen prosecuted, and Mr. Chester defended. Prisoner was employed to meet the trains at the Petersfield station with a fly, his duty being to account at half-past nine o’clock on Monday morning for the fares which he received from persons for conveying them to adjacent villages, &c. It was proved that he neglected to do this with respect to two journeys which he took, for one of which he took 10s., and the other 8s. When taken into custody at Havant, where he went instead of going to his master, £2 7s. 6d was found upon him, and he said £2 of it belonged to his master, and the remaining 7s. was the balance of 10s. due to him as wages; He had, he said, been drinking a good deal lately, and it was in consequence of that it had occurred. He told another policeman that he supposed he should get ‟a month of it” at Winchester; it was all through the drink, and the bother and grumbling of his master, so that he could not put up with it any longer; but there was one consolation, he had all his master’s money all right, and if he had not been taken perhaps he should have spent it all in drink, and then he did not know what the ――― he should have done.
Mr. Chester for the defence, commented strongly on the fact that only two hours after the time defendant should have accounted for the sums he had received, the prosecutor had sent the police after him, and he referred to the cases of complaint made against him by the prosecutor as a proof that he entertained some ‟animus” against him. Liable to these continued complaints, and having before him an intimation from his master that he had better suit himself in another situation, he had gone to Havant in a moment of excitement, certainly without having first paid over the money, in order to get another place, but was his conduct, in at once saying that he had £2 of his master’s money, at all compatable with guilt, whilst he instanced his suspicion of getting a month at Winchester, as a proof that he knew his master’s vindictiveness.—The jury acquitted the prisoner.