HOTEL PESTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23040, 18 May 1938, Page 24

HOTEL PESTS

VIEWS OF A JUDGE THE MAN WHO STARTS TROUBLE [from our own correspondent] MELBOUENE, May 11 That touch of nature which makes the whole world kin is possessed by Judge Stretton, whose remarks on "hotel pests" attracted much attention in General Sessions this week. A ship's fireman of massive proportions was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The attack, it was alleged, followed a refusal by two country youths to drink with him in a hotel. "I suppose it has happened to most of us at some time," said .Judge Stretton, while summing up. "We have been having a quiet drink, and perhaps listening to a broadcast of the races, as these young men were doing, when some fellow with a few drinks in him —by no means drunk, but just nasty —will try to join the party and generally make a pest of himself. "You may say to him, 'Please go away, old man; I am talking to a friend; do not worry me.' He may go away, but, like the flics, will return and not let you alone. After a while you decide to speak more sternly and use a little bit of appropriate bad language by tolling him to go to the dovil. But because of this you do not expect to be knocked unconscious."

At a later stage in his summing up, Judge Stretton said the law required that,.if possible, a man should go away when threatened with attack. He sometimes thought, however, tliat that was too high a duty to impose on men in Australia. When threatened with fight the ordinary man did not want to run away, but to shpw he was not afraid. The law ruled otherwise, however.