“BEER LAW” INCIDENT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8681, 14 March 1914, Page 15

“BEER LAW” INCIDENT

BRITISHER IN PRUSSIA PINED FOR “GROSS AUDACITY.” BERLIN, January 28. A smart fine was inflicted on a British subject to-day by the local court at Rathenow, for the “gross audacity of beating a German in his own Fatherland.” On August Bth an English gentleman was motoring through the Mark of Brandenburg with his secretary. They stopped at Rathenow, and the secretary and chaffeur sat at a table and ordered beer. A master builder, Karl Haeuser by name, was in. the same room. He was apparently drunk and thought fit _to annoy the foreigners, first by making faces, and then by making audible remarks such as “English swine.” He finally came to the table and tried to engage the strangers in conversation, which the latter declined. At this stage Haeuser, noticing that the lid of the secretary’s earthenware beer-mug was not down, placed his own mugontopof it and claimed a drink, in accordance with the well-known German drinking custom. The secretary, losing his patience, sprang up and, it was alleged, threw the beer over Haeuser, and struck him a_ blow over the head with his mug, making a fourinoh wound. ‘ ' The British visitors, who offered Haeuser compensation, which was refused, were allowed to leave Germany on hail. They were examined by commission and did not appear to-day. The court, consisting of a judge and two lay assessors, sentenced Haeuser to a fin© of fifty marks for insulting a British party,' and fined the secretary fifty marks for insulting Haeuser by pouring beer over him, and 350 marks for the assault.