BEER OR VIOLETS?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20190, 30 August 1927, Page 6

BEER OR VIOLETS?

INEBRIATE’S NOVEL DEFENCE. A constable who apparently could not distinguish between the flinell of beer and the scent of violets was the cause of Thomas Livingston* appearing before Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., at the City Police Court yesterday on charges 01 drunkenness and having procured liquor during the currency of a prohibition order. Accused pleaded not guilty to both charges. Constable Feeley gave evidence that when he arrested accused in George street on Saturday night he was undoubtedly drunk. He was endeavouring to retrieve some money he had dropped and was staggering about, quite unable to look after himself. . . Asked his version of the matter, Livingstone launched into a vigorous denial of botli charges. „ “As a matter of fact, your Worship, he said, “my teeth are very bad and this affects my breath, and so I eat lollies.” _ He then went on to deliver a lecturette on the unpleasantness of bad 'breath, and explained that in his case he had found violet-scented a particularly potent deodoriser. “ I eat a lot of lollies, he added. Then came the auestion of the reliability of the constable’s sense of smell. “ It' is just possible,” Livingstone pointed out naively, '* that the constable may have mistaken the smell of my lollies for beer, and thought I had been drinking.” “ Then,” he continued, “ it was a wet night on Saturday, and anyone might have had to dodge backwards and forwards to miss the mud puddles.” Here the Magistrate interjected that there wa!j a difference between a man’s gait when he was drunk and when he was dodging nuddlcs, and that an experienced constable would hardly make mistake in this respect. The Accused then inquired somewhat heatedly why he had not been allowed to have a doctor to examine him when he was taken to the police station, and the explanation by Senior Sergeant Quartermain that no money was forthcoming he put aside, . 1 ‘ I could have got the money from my sister,” he said. “I know, she would .have given it to me willinglv.” The Senior Sergeant said the accused had 29 previous convictions and was a particularly bad character. In fact, he had been ’ living on a woman for some time oast. , , ■ “ What has that to do with it?” asked the accused. “It seems to me that when you get a man down you want to keep him there.” The Magistrate said he thought a term on a farm settlement would do Livingstone good. That would be the best place for a man of his type. He would be fined £2, in default seven days’ imprisonment on the charge .of drunkenness, and 40b for having failed to comply with the terms of his prohibition order.