Pepper And A Pickhandle

NZ Truth, Issue 1001, 31 January 1925, Page 6

Pepper And A Pickhandle

Lothario Unmasked Anonymous Letters And A Lonely Rendezvous— Gallant Girl Puts Persistent Pest To Rout And An Anzac's Watch Is Recovered (Prom "Truth's" New Plymouth Rep.) The breed holds good. The Anzac whose gold watch was lost or stolen from his clothing on Anzac slopes nearly ten years ago may thank -a girl of this later decide, m whose veins it is evident that similar red blood runs, for the recovery of his ticker — a trophy, by the way. Pested by anonymous letters from a ■ would-be suitor she eventually acceded to a lonely rendezvous appointed, and there with a parcel of pepper and a pick- handle, put to inglorious rout this underhand Lothario — and lo! an An- ' zac's long-lost, gold watch is recovered.

Lost or stolen on Gallipoli m 1915, and! recovered at Spotswood, New Plymouth, just ten years later the watch is now prized more than ever by its owner, Mr. A. Perry, a traveller for Briscoe and Go., Dunedin, to whom it is about to be returned.

The watch came to Mr. Perry as a reward of skating prowess at a carnival held m the Brydone Roller Skating Rink m Dunedin, 1913, and went with him to Gallipoli when he enlisted m the Otago Battalion of the Main Body of the N.Z.E.F. Having with implacable face accompanied its owner over Egs'ptian sands and through many a hot encounter on Anzac slopes, the watch was stolen from its owner's clothes while he was bathing on the beach at Anzac. Mr. Perx*y survived the Great Adventure and had almost forgotten the wotch when he was called on one day recently by a Dunedin policeman who inquired if the watch produced was his. It was, and this is how it came into the possession of the police and through them will be returned to its rightful owner. In November of last year, a young lady of. Spotswood whose. brothers are not unknown m amateur boxing circles m Taranaki, found she was the recipient of unwanted attentions from an unknown admirer who asked her to meet him. She ignored the' first letter from the would-be swain, but when a second letter came through the post she decided to keep a suggested appointment. She took a friend with her, but the letter-wx'iter failed to materialise, ■ explaining m. a subsequent and last epistle that he wanted to meet her alone.

The rendezvous fixed was a lonely spot at the corner of South and Bayly Roads, a short distance from the town of New Plymouth, but within a mile of the girl's home. This appointment, also, the young lady decided to keep, and alone, except for the compa.ny of a stout pick-handle and a handful of pepper m a piece of paper. It was dusk when she approached the spot to receive a greeting, "I'm glad to see you are punctual." The young lady, nervous but game, carried on : the conversation just sufficiently long to satisfy herself that this was really the letter-writer and when he said, "I've always wanted to know you ever since I first saw you," let him have it. Exclaiming, "This is all you'll ever get to know me," dashed the pepper into the man's face and then belabored him with the pickhandle. Three times the cudgel rose and fell heavily on the man's body ere he turned and ran screaming down the hill, the pickhandle following him as a missile. As he ran, a watch fell from his pocket. It was the one lost by Mr .Perry on Gallipoli. Efforts to trace the man concerned m the Spotswood affair have so far proved fruitless, but the police are not without hopes. Mr. Perry was traced through an inscription on the back of the watch and was. easily able to establish his title to it. He was also easily able to show, it may be added, that he was m Dunedin at the time of the happenings just recounted and therefore could have had no possible connection with them.