“HOT THAT IT MATTERS!”

Evening Star, Issue 21724, 19 May 1934, Page 14

“HOT THAT IT MATTERS!”

A. A. MILNE VOLUME MISTAKEN FOIt BIBLE AMUSING INCIDENT IN CHILDREN'S COURT [Per United Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, May 19. “ You will have to prove the case, as the defendant is not here,” said Mr H. P. Lawry, S.M., in the Children’s Court this morning, when a hoy was charged with riding a bicycle without a lamp. The sergeant hastily called the constable concerned, while the fingers of his right hand groped for the Bible with which to minister the oath. His clutching hand found a book which was passed to tho constable, but it was not the Bible—it was a slim brown volume of essays by A. A. Milne, the noted English playwright and humorist, aptly entitled ‘ Not That It Matters,’ which had been left on tho desk. The mistake was unnoticed by the chief actors, and the constable clutched the little book with the blue-and-gold monogram while the sergeant administered the solemn oath: “Do you swear by Almighty God? . . .” Then the case proceeded, but when the court sitting was over the magistrate was told of the sergeant’s mistake.