A SATURDAY NIGHT ARREST

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9695, 25 June 1917, Page 6

A SATURDAY NIGHT ARREST

The oft-repeated quotation, a policeman’s lot is not a nappy one, is never more true or more applicable than when the man m blue is arresting a troublesome law-breaker with a large crowd of lookers-on. 1 heman being arrested might he the biggest scoundrel unhung, he may be stronger and more hefty than his apprefiender, yet it is always a strange perversity of human nature that the sympathy of the crowd, acave or passive, always lies with the person being arrested. So it was on Saturday night, when Constable Ryan set about arresting a giant—6 feet. - inches in his stockings at least —in Vivian street-. The man was drunk, he was disorderly, and he, did iiot; want to go to the lock-up. But Constable Ryan knew a bit of jiu-jitsu, and in a' trice he had six feet two ot obstreperousness handcuffed and levelled on the ground. The crowd did not like it, and followed policeman and captive to the station. Bo* fore they reached there, another man, who, from his size, might have been a brother of the arrested one, interfered. There was a wild struggle, and when it was over thtj man with the handcuffs had disappeared. Constable Ryan retained the obstructor, and, remembering the old saying that ‘ a bird in the hand is worth two m the bush,” quickly marched off the now captive to the station. The man with the “bracelets” is still at large, but his would-be friend will appear before' the magistrate this morning.