INDECENCY OR IMAGINATION?

NZ Truth, Issue 148, 18 April 1908, Page 7

INDECENCY OR IMAGINATION?

Did He Do It? Little Palmerston South has been agog this past week over the case of Frederick Brennan. Frederick was charged the other day • before the Police Court with wilfully and indecency exposing Mmselt m a first-class railway carriage on the express train between Oamaru and Dunedin, v -the only other - passenger at the time being -a- girl ' aged fourteen years. Freddy's defence was a complete denial, and the energetic Hanlon appeared for him. The evidence of the girl, an ordinary-look-ing young person of school-girl appearance, stated that Frederick entered the carriage at Palmerston, when she was m the carriage, by herself, and sat down facing her a little distance away. She was displeased by his looks and his ' manner, but for a time nothing happened. She was badly scared, though, and she could not help closely watching when he put his

hands down to the front of him, and she saw something. He did this wilfully and intentionally, and he smiled at her ingratiatingly, and spoke to her. She did not enter into conversation -with him and refused to look at him. His wrongdoing did not last very long. The Magistrate said he could not understand exactly what sort of a carriage they were m. The girl's description beat him. Mr Hanlon pointed out that the appearance of the girl gave one the impression that she was extremely nervous. Further, she had been scared before starting that day by a warning about men and travelling alone. Some most awful charges had been levelled against men who had indiscreetly travelled alone with a female m a railway compartment, and of courso the woman's word was always accepted m preference to that of the rude, lustful man. Frederick was a young man of excellent character, his conduct afterwards was perfectly consistent with innocence, and it seemed hard that there was a possibility of his life being blasted on the word of A HIGH-STRUNG, .HYSTERICAL GIRL. He had nothing to say against the tart m question, said Hanlon, but would submit to the Cdurt that she had been badly scared by • her mother and aunt, a pair of fussy old women, and it was more than possible that she had made a mistake. Freddy said he was 29 years of age, was a lineman Sin the Railway Department, and had been happily married for two years. He noticed the young miss m the car when he entered it, and it struck him at the time she was m an extremely flustered state. He had always borne a good character, said Freddy, and, moreover, he had had the personal thanks of Sir Robert Stout on some assistance he had given on a point of law. This did not have much to do with the present case, but he thought it might help things along. The guard of the train, the Mayor of the wayside village from which Freddy hails, and an unhealthy looking solicitor person called Crisp, together with a few other persons of lesser consequence, earnestly testified to the angelic qualities of Freddy, and the sheer physical impossibility of his doing the' horrible thing attributed to him by the little school-girl person. ' Magistrate Widdowson, after listening wearily to the case for several hours, said he felt a very grave and deep responsibility cast upon him. He did not ask for time to pray, but he did require time for thought and serious rumination. He would give his decision m a week.