And the Too Acquisitive Goldsmith from Ceylon A Ceylonese named M. Andrews, described as a goldsmith, appeared before Mr. G. W. King at H.M. Police Court on Tuesday charged with being drunk and disorderly in Miller Road, assaulting a Chinese woman, and stealing a gold ring and a gold pin from two amahs.
Inspector Mackenzie, who appeared for the police, informed the Court that accused went to a house in Miller Road where one of the amahs was employed and asked her to let him look at the ring. She refused, and he removed it forcibly from her finger. He also took a gold pin from the hair of this woman's friend, giving her one worth a few cents in exchange for it. When the owner of the ring met him in the street some days later and asked for it back, he knocked her down in the road.
Several witnesses were called in support of this story. A man who witnessed the assault stated that he saw defendant kneeling on the woman and bumping her head against the ground.
Defendant's excuse was that he only borrowed the things and intended to return them in eight days.
He was sentenced to one month's imprisonment.
The Magistrate ordered both the ring and the pin to be returned to a pawnbroker with whom defendant had pawned them for $8. His Worship pointed out that in the case of a British subject he would have ordered their return to the complainant, since under British law a third person could not claim ownership of stolen property received as in this case. There was no such law in China, and the two women would have to pay the pawnbroker the $8 he had advanced on the articles.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.