ROSSINI RACKED.

NZ Truth, Issue 60, 18 August 1906, Page 8

ROSSINI RACKED.

Mysterious Midnight Window Breaking.

Wanton mischief is a very annoys ing thing to; >% victims, and it is< usually attributed to youngsters or: ; ; hoodlums, although alleged men may vent their spleen on their enemies now and again, by . destroying their property. In 'such an event the person so put out of pocket may at least have a suspicion as ,to the. identity of the dastard. But Louis Rossini, iof Christchurch, possesses no idea' of the person 6r persons who has so vindictively pursued him durinp the last eight months. Rossini keeps a tobacconist's shop i«> Oxford-terrace, and also sells fancy p-oods, post cards and other luxuries. During. the last eight months he har had his plate glass window smashed •by someone or other on no fewer than six occasions. "Why the devil hedoesn't buy shutters would be z. natural question. Presumably he likes his windows to have plenty of air at, night time; if so they have been getting we.ll ventilated latterly. The proprietor is a well built Italian who has 1 been m the colony a good v many years, but who found time to run home to Italy, a couple of years ago to marry one of the fairest of Italy's daughters. A gay dog is Rossini. Ten. years ago he ran a tobacconist's shop at Auckland, but it. was 'Very soqiv' discovered th&t there was something more 'attractive than my Lady Nicotine kest on the premises., There were others, and the customer with .cash needn't take his change if he liked ;. he could get what he deemed to be its equivalent m the bacSc parlor, a nicely fitted up little den where sordid cares were temporarily forgotten and Pleasure aligned supreme. The true character of the weed shop speedily got' around among the Johnnies and business prospered.. But the interfering police took a look m one pale moonlight night, and the upshot was "that Rossini was summoned and afterwards

CONVICTED OF RUNNING A' j . BROTHEL. It is bad enough for a woman to be had iip for that sort oi thing, but r. Man— well it's a class of offence that men of any sort of respectabilit- or, standing 1 would shrink from. However, Louis discarded the brothel as an adjunct to a tobacconist's shop and shifted. He has since been m business at Wellington and Dunedin,.. and latterly at • C. hris.tcb.urch, but hr; is a reformed man-, and is above that sort of thing how. But to get backto his muchly smashed windows. The 'fifth time his £10 plate glass was cracked star shape Rossini and his madame sat up late every. night, being seated on the counter with the light out anxiously waiting to se-o if the viliian would happen alonfi some more. He did sure enough, exactly one week afterwards. It was just on midnight when a fellow cam* alone: and belted a bottle at thn glass and then ran like the devil. The pair of watchers say they recognised him ; at any rate they ran and saw a figure 'disappearing inside the gate of a boarding-house near at hand. They roused the boardinghouse, and one of the servants found the suspect m bed asleep. Next day they gave the name to the police, and a woolly-headed barber named Stephen Wain was charged with the offence. Wain v;orl<s for Barry, who is a hairdresser and tobacconist anil has a shop near Rossini's. At the Supreme Court t'other day Rosini swore to Wain's identity ; he said he didn't know why the man should do the deed ; they had never quarrelled. The prosecutor admitted having -been convicted years aw for Keeping -a brother in 'Auckland.. The police had never received ar.v conv-

plaints about him m Christchurch. Stepped there into the box Guiseppie Rossini, a ■>

PAIR, FLEECY VISION m Jifdream of a costume, crowned by an elegant fizzmegig called a hat, set off h' v a bird of plumage and some mauve colored fluff. As it was alleged that; the lady, wasn't well versed m the. intricacies of the En£li§jb;: - language as it is spoken m ljfaft)'r.iland Me waS: dowered with an inteffcreter^ind^fier dainty speech irffi|ifed a^onjg' smoothly like sausages th't&igh d'|p.chirie",'- She corroborated heretiusban^ and identified Wain as the' manipulator of, the bottle on the glass. The was a total de:oial. and Mr Donnelly called evidence to show that Wain was m bed at the boarding-house m question at a" few minutes after eleven. This' was corroborated by a servant, a lady bearing another Italian name m the shape of Agnes O'Connor. She found him m bed- after the rumpus: An effort had been uiade to show- that a person couldn't be identified tinder the circumstances that existed on the night m question— stormy and dark, and with only a lamp light from across the street, but Sergeant Morgan said -he had made a test with a six foot policeman at midnight when graveyards yawn and said it could. Mr Donnellv pointed'' out the utter absence of motive, and spoke strongly on the identification business ft which so many people made mi stakes, and the jury didn't take long 1,0 fmt\ a verdict m favor of Waif. Ney.t,. time Rossini gets hip shop ♦acr. fractured he should follow the delinquent with a shot-gun !