RIVAL STOREKEEPERS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 36, 11 February 1926, Page 5

RIVAL STOREKEEPERS

4 SWEDES AND BOBBED HAIE. "Can you tell me what is the nationality ot your neighbour! " said Mr. 0. B. Orr "Walker, S.M., to a -witness in a double assault case at Upper Hutt yesterday. "He is a Swede, I believe, your "Worship," said the woman witness. '' Ah, that accounts for his objection to bobbed hair. Have you not noticed by the trouble up in Auckland that members of that nationality object to women, bobbing their hairf You should always,"'said Mr. Orr Walker, facetiously, "consult your neighbour before you cut your hair; it would save a lot of trouble." "Yes," said the witness, "it would have saved a lot of trouble in this case." The case was one in which C. _E. Backstrom (Mr. G: Swan) proceeded against H. J. Williams (Mr. A. J. Mazengarb) for assault, with a cross-action by Williams against Backstrom for the same offence. The parties are rival storekeepers, with stores opposite each other near the Wallaceville Railway Station,' and the alleged assaults toolc place on the common ground of the road between the two stores. Backstrom (who Mrs. Williams said she believed to be a Swede) stated that on 21st January last Williams without cause called out to him across the road, '' You ought to , have the old-age pension^" and when he (Baekstroin) went over to Williams, Williams said, "I'll give you' a smack," and immediately struck him on" the nose. He did not strike Williams, who had an artificial arm, but merely fended him off. The story of the other party differed somewhat, and was > corroborated by two other witnesses—Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Dick. Williams stated that earlier in the day Mrs. Williams had impolite remarks made to her by Baekstrom on account of her having had her "■ hair cut, and on the occasion of the assault Backstrom had stood in his: shop door and made "sneering and jeering" remarks relative to Mrs. Williams's bobbed hair, and this had called forth from Williams, who characterised Backstrom's attitude as "childish," the remark about the old-age pension which brought Backstrom across the street, and he (Williams) then said, "Don't you think you ought to be smacked for speaking to my wife like that." To which Backstrom replied, "Well, give it to me," and, said Williams, "I.did," Williams asserted that Backstrom retaliated quickly, and that afterwards, when Williams was adjusting his artificial arm, and'was defenceless, Backstrom struck him again a heavy blow on the face. Mr. Orr Walker said he had not much difficulty in coming to the decision that both parties should be bound over to keep the peace. It appeared that Backstrom was most to blame, but Williams had continued the trouble. Both parties were ordered to find sureties of the peace and pay their oVn expenses.