QUIET DISTURBED.
STREET RELIGIOUS LECTURES,
AUCKLAND MAN CONVICTED. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, April 17. “The preaelnng of religion hurts nobody,” said Leonard Vincent Howe, a member of a sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, in the Magistrate’s Court. He was charged with making a noise in Beresford Street, whereby the peace and quiet of persons in the neighbourhood might be disturbed. Sergeant Breuchley said that at 9.30 p.m. on February 21 he went to the intersection of Beresford Street and Pitt Street, where he found a motor-car with a loud-speaker attached. The defendant said the instrument was an electrical transcription machine, and comprised a gramophone and large refcords. The records were American, and carried religious messages. The apparatus was" like the usual loudspeakers used at sports gatherings and could be heard in Karangahape Hoad. The noise was exceptionally loud, and witness could hardly hear what the defendant was saying. Two weeks before the apparatus was at the same place from 8.45 to 10.45 p.m. There was a crowd of from 150 to 200 persons listening to the lecture.
Sydney Herbert Hoskins said that he lived with his wife and child in a flat at Beresford Street. For some time his sleep and that of his wife and child were disturbed, and on two Friday nights previously the noise had started at 8.45 and on one night had continued until 11.15.
In evidence, defendant said he went to the City Council, and was told he was quite entitled to broadcast lectures where he liked, except in certain specified streets. Two residents of the house in which the complainant lived gave evidence that they enjoyed the lectures, and counsel produced a statement signed by about 80 people in various parts of Auckland who stated that they enjoyed the lectures and did not think the peace and quiet of the neighbourhood had been disturbed. The signatories included eight members of the central flro brigade staff. The Magistrate: There is a time, place and manner for everything.
Defendant was convicted and ordered to pay costs, provided he gave a guarantee not to oporato his apparatus after 9.30 p.m.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG19360418.2.7
Bibliographic details
Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 159, 18 April 1936, Page 2
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353QUIET DISTURBED. Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 159, 18 April 1936, Page 2
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