IT MUST HAVE BEEN SO

NZ Truth, Issue 1044, 28 November 1925, Page 9

IT MUST HAVE BEEN SO

The police force has received from Benjamin Riley the highest testimonial m its history. Benjamin is cook on the good ship Leitrim. Asked m the Wellington Court how he pleaded to a drunkenness charge, he replied: "I must have beeu drunk or I would not have been arrested." Also, shown a slab of obscenity that would have made the ship's parrot fall fainting from its perch, he replied: "I must have used it or it would not be Written here." Wild-whiskered and unkempt, he stood m the dock while the Magistrate regarded him with some dubiety as to his ability to pay a fine. But Ben Riley put all doubts to rest. "I've got forty pound m the ship," he announced. It was a refreshing candor, and he was required to extract only 25s all told. . ' . If Benjamin's process of deductive reasoning is followed by all persons who come before the court on criminal charges, the position of Crown Prosecutor will no doubt speedily become a sinecure. ....-■ Imagine the highly respectable motorist (apprehended on the smell of his breath) telling the Magistrate: "I must have been drunk while m charge of my car or the police would never have taken the wheel from me." When police court proceedings become a mere exchange of bouquets, the blushing constables will lose their punch, and there will no longer be an audience of women except to hear the most "intimate" cases.