PANIC IN LOS ANGELES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 152, 29 June 1926, Page 8

PANIC IN LOS ANGELES.

MOTOR SPEEDERS' WATERLOO. "HORSE-AND-BUGGY" MAGISTRATE. GAOL WITHOUT EXCEPTION. A considerable number of motor speeding cases come before the New Zealand Courts in the course of a year. But their number is a bagatelle beside those now being called for hearing in Los Angeles. California, where an oldfashioned, "horse-and-buggy" magistrate is not only handing out stiff sentences, but has "gingered up" the police to such effect that the number of prosecutions in recent weeks has left the city and its people too bewildered for words.

In one short week last month Judge Joseph Chambers, the "beak" in question, sent no fewer than 293 men and women to gaol for driving at what he described as the "terrific pace" of 20 miles an hour, an average of over 40 a day. Whew! The sentences ranged from two' to sixty days. Again, whew!

Nothing can move this stern judge. He is deaf to all pleas for leniency, to which he replies that. there is really no necessity for riding in motor cars, which he admits he hates. "I walk to work," he said to one offender; "so can you. Ten days in gaol!" Once more, whew!

A large proportion of the offenders are women, but the dear creatures —as might be expected of American women— have no high and mighty ideas on the subject of sex equality when law-break-ing is in question. They think that they should be let off, whatever may happen to the men, and essay every feminine wile to make Judge Chambers think so, too. But in this matter he considers men and women are equal. And this in the U.S.A., of all places—the land where the woman offender, be she by-law breaker or murderess, is almost always accorded sloppy sympathy by the bucketful. Again, whew! A "speeders' strike" has been launched, this meaning that offenders are demanding trial by jury instead of being dealt with summarily. This, they reckon, makes their chance of acquittal something like six to one. And the civic authorities are having pressure brought to bear on them by angry constituents, and the automobile clubs are protesting fiercely, and everyone in Los Angeles is very much upset. But Judge Chambers is unperturbed, and when the last mail left he was going serenely ahead,; ignoring the demand for jury trials, and, at the end of every hearing, remarking with monotonous regularity: "Two days, or "ten days," or "sixty days." The sentences are the main topic of conversation whenever two or more Los Angelitos meet. "How long will it go on?" "Why doesn't someone stop ifi" are the questions they ask. But no one can answer, and all they can,do is to mop their agitated brows and remark: "Whew!" •

Now, if Judge Chambers only came to New Zealand ! Whew ! Whew ! ! Whew !!'!•■• ' '■ ■