Our Dunedin Letter.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 97, 16 December 1902, Page 3

Our Dunedin Letter.

-' - ■■ ' ♦ (FfiOM Our Owk Cobrkspondbnt.) Dunedin, Saturday. On Monday judgment was given against Miss A. R R«itl, for a breach of the Electoral Act, in signing a false declaration as to her age. In giving his decision, Mr Graham, S.M., said : — "That the defendant; made the statemen knowingly there can be no doubt, as she has admitted as much in her evidence. The only question, therefore, is, Did she do so wilfully? She says she was given to understand that if she was over 20 years and six months she would be entitled to vote. She should therefore have altered the statement to that effect, and rejied, on its haying the desired result, But instead ofabing so she chose to adhere to the original statement, which she knew to be false, and I muse therefore' conclude that she did so wilfully. The maximum penalty is a fine of £20 or a term of imprison* ment." Mr Graham said he would impose a light penalty, as it was the first case of the kind, and it would act as warning to others. Miss Reid's council asked that the penalty be made high enough to appeal, so a penalty of £5 Is was therefore imposed, amount of security being fixed at £20. Costs against defendant amounted to £1 14s. At the meeting of the Education Board on Wednesday the Health Officer, whose dictatorial communications have been much in evidence at the meetings of various local bodies lately, was again to the fore with an autocratic letter. The communication accused the Board of declining to assist the Health Department in stamping out the present epidemic of scarlet fever. The letter concluded with the threat that if the Board did not carry out his wishes he would apply to the Governor to compel them to do so. Naturally this roused the ire of the members. Mr T; MacKenzie declared in the course of his remarks, " This sort of health business was simply running mad, — (Hear, hear,) — and was all due to the fact that I they had a plague scare in the colony ; about two years ago. The letter froni Dr Ogston showed a dictatorial spirit in in threatening the Board with action by the Government, and to ask them to keep children out of their schools simply because a child had a day's illness was going too far altogether." A resolution was passed to the effect that Dv Ogston was quite incorrect in stating that the Board declined to assist him, but they did decline to instruct teachers not to permit children absent from school to return, unless they furnished a certificate giving the reason for such absence, as it was arbitrary, and beyond the power of the Board to do so. The baiting of the City Engineer still continues, and it looks as if some of the councillors will never be happy till they have worried him out of his billet. The public are getting sick and tired of the carping criticism indulged in, and the want of a spirit of fair play, which is being shown by some o£ the councillors in their treatment of this officer. Nothing is too small to bring against the Engineer, and it says little for those councillors, who are opposed to him, that they should lose no opportunity of showing their spleen. At the last meeting of the council the chief crime laid against the Engineer was that he had sent one of his Staff out to make a report, and the council practically moved a vote o£ censure for doing so without their permission ! That is what the whole thing amounts to in effect. At the meeting Cr Muir voiced the general opinion of citizens when he said, " that if officers were to be treated as Mr Rogers had beep the result will be that no self-respecting man in the colony or outside of it would accept service j under the Dunedin Corporation! If he (Cr Muir) were a professional man \ he would rather do anything that was honest labor than accept service under the council while it treated its officers as it was now treating Mr .Rogers." A Prohibition bombshell was thrown into the Trade camp on Thursday night, in the shape of a letter in the • Star ' by Mr J. MacGregor, the wellknown lawyer. The gist of the letter was that if the Trade succeeded in upsetting the Dunedin poll, thera was no provision in the 1895 Act to permit the granting of any licenses, " and the result would be that in Dunedin, for instance, in case of the vote of reduction being set aside, not a single license could be renewed in June next." But balm was pouted upon the troubled souls of the publicans when on Friday, the evening paper contained another letter, from Mr J. R. Thornton, solicitor, stating that he was amused at Mr McGregor's version of the law ! He pointed out that "If the licensing poll in Dunedin is declared void, then that poll is in law a 'nullity/ which being interpreted means that no poll has taken place at all, and therefore what was intended to be a poll has no legal effect whatsoever. You then ask yourself What was the previous determination of the electors? It was Continuance, and therefore Continuance must still reign, assuming that the present poll for reduction is declared void." If people were not occupied with prohibition and other kindred joys, it is probable that some of our public men would have time to turn their attention to the inability of our police farce to catch the wily burglar. It ia certainly time that another Police Commission was appointed, to make enquiries into the inefficiency of New Zealand detectives and policemen in

■iiw. ■■ ■" -■■■i >■■■■■»——— — — — i«w«^»^mSsS!»^^^SimpS capturing criminals. In Dunedin people look upon this inefficiency now-a-days as quite a matter of course. No one ever expects a policeman to bring these culprits to justice, and the wily burglar goes onjhis wicked way, making a dishonest, but first-class; livin% at tjfce expense of our citizen^ and tlie police spend their time in official slumber ! Most people when they go out at night now, plant their valuables, and leave everything inside their houses unlocked. Few people bother the police about household robberies, as they know it is of no use ! To show the calm audacity of burglars, I may mention that a case occurred recently where one afternoon a burglar entered a house, while the people were in the house, went upstairs and cleared out with £25 worth of jewellery.