ONCE ABOARD—

NZ Truth, Issue 1152, 29 December 1927, Page 6

ONCE ABOARD—

Trouble With The Olive Branch

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Rep,) "Give a dog a bad name, e to," but give a launch a good name, a name symbolical of peace and harmony, and one would expect that, nothing but goodfellowship would ripple in its wake. MOT so with the "Olive Branch," a A * fishing launch of Auckland harbor, when George Reid (41), who claimed to be the owner, went aboard the other evening and disturbed a happy little tea-party. Andrew Clark, another disciple of, the nets, was the one who stood the brunt of the "skipper's" intrusion. He narrated the storm the next morning at the Auckland Police Court, when Reid was charged with assault. "What are you. doing here, you . . . .?" was said to be the manner in which the enraged Reid had anr nounced his entry, using a flow of incidental language. Aye, Aye, Sir . . -'. : Followed a struggle in which the witness was grabbed, so he. said, by the vest and "dragged out of. the cockpit." Then, with further invective, which included a. remark about a. "police pimp," the hefty Reid was about to consign witness to the depths of the Waitemata when the others interfered. Reid strongly disputed Clark's story when Magistrate 1 McKean invited him to ask any questions he wished and the cross-examination took the form of a rapid dialogue between the two fishermen. "You call yourself a fisherman?" sarcastically inquired the accused, looking down with the utmost contempt upon a little man who stood in the' witness-box to corroborate the first witness. "Why, you'J lose yourself if you went fishing!" In his statement to the magistrate. Reid explained that the launch was really the property of the Ideal Loan . Company, and he paid a weekly hire-, age of 30/-. .. "The women that are brought onto that launch," continued the brawny salt in excusing himself ioi\ putting tiie; man off the craft,, "make it hot V.yery." nice.' for me, and I had to put them off."' When he heard the fine was £5, Reid pleaded for a chance to make a trip with his nets, but a murky list of previous convictions went against , him. He was, however, given the chance to make arrangements with the police if he could get the money, otherwise he must, by compulsion, be a land-lubber for at least 14 days..