REGISTERING A PEA-RIFLE

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20955, 8 September 1933, Page 17

REGISTERING A PEA-RIFLE

TO THE EDITOR, OF THK, lUIE9B. Sir,—A gentleman signing himself John Booth gives your humble servant a thorough castigation in "The Press" to-day for what I wrote on the above subject, and no doubt his rebuke is well merited. He says that he, too, has had transactions with the police in connexion with the registration of a pea rifle, and he assures your readers that he has never met more courteoys and brotherly men than those he met at the arms office, Christchurch. Well, I am not aware that I made any charge of discourtesy to me by the police. I had no complaint on that score. They were all courteous to me, but I did not experience anything of a particularly brotherly nature in my several interviews, and if they were brotherly to John Booth, I should advise him to keep as "brotherly" with them as possible, as it might stand him in good service some of these days. Anyway, I was not dealing with the original registration, but with the reregistration 12 years afterwards. It was the triviality of the whole affair that tickled me, and I forfeited the implement; John Booth ought to follow my example. I have heard something of the Old Country's laws of which he writes, and I have also heard of some miscreants having been hanged for poaching in the same Old Country, but we in this new country arc more enlightened, and our laws are more liberal. John Booth does not seem to know that in this country shags are outlawed, and that the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society gives 12s a dozen for their heads (wholesale), and will also give Is a head (retail). The shag is a predatory bird, and seems to have a particular anpetite for trout. As many as half-a-dozen trout have been found in one's interior economy, and trout up to three or four pounds in weight have also been found inside a shag. So, John Booth will see that we get rewarded here for shooting shags, instead of having to suffer dire punishment, as in Great Britain. What beats me is that I got off so lightly, when I gave up my rifle. I fully expected that I would be charged double rates for being so recalcitrant. I suppose that that was just one of the points that was overlooked when the belated regulations were made by the Governor-in-Coun-cil. —Yours, etc., ALEX. WILDEY. September 5, 1933.