“BUSTING” BY-LAWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1929, Page 4

“BUSTING” BY-LAWS

N.SAV. JUDGE MAKES MERRY. “If he does it again, I’ll cut his throat!.” Charles Reeve, I.W.W. orator, of Sydney, did not even blink when he heard the threat. It came from — Judge Edwards! Reeve appealed against a magistrate’s conviction of £2O on two charges of collecting in the Domain (says the Sydney “Telegraph Pictorial”) . His Honor read the new by-laws. There were penalties tor jumping over seats,(lying under seats, taking goats or fowls on the lawns. “Nor,” said Mr. Sproule (for Reeve) “can you exercise elephants on the sward.” “Charged with busting the by-laws,” said his Honor, when Mr. Sproule submitted that Reeve had been convicted under a repealed by-law. Reeve said that he had been before the Bench on six charges, and the magistrate had “He stung yon for two fennel's, and a shilling, and. , .’’interrupted Judge Edwards. “Not; 'the same day, your Honor.” “Oh! Go on! You be blowed,” said his Honor. Reeve said that the first he had heard about the charges was when he had read about being fined £2O.

“He acted in defiance of the law. But that doesn’t mean you have to put the boot into a man and kick him to death,” said Judge Edwards. / The fine was reduced to one shilling in each case. Then came the gem: “If he does it again, I’ll cut his throat,” his Honor remarked, jocularly. But, tarry awhile—Reeve had been fined £5. for unseemly words in the Domain. He appealed against that, too.

One, Mdatheringham, said Mr. Sproule, kept interrupting the oratory of Mr. Reeve. So Reeve said: “Go away, you ——.’ His Honor read the rest. “Does he often perform like this?” he -asked, and said something about going to hear Reeve some Sunday. “Meatheringham comes up and calls him a Bolshie,” said M?r. Sproule. “Is he? What’s a Bolshie?” asked the judge, and then— — “Pm amused, but .don’t think il’m not a dangerous man in a matter like this!” > His Honor, later:— ' “I, increase the fine to £lO. It is due of the worst exhibitions of language I’ve ever heard!”