CHARGE OF FORGERY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20961, 26 February 1930, Page 10

CHARGE OF FORGERY.

LETTER TO' A NEWSPAPER. . ACCUSED FOUND NOT GUILTY. (Per United Press Association.} HAMILTON, February 25. An unusual charge of forgery of considerable interest to the public, and particularly >to newspaper editors, was commenced in the Supreme Court to-day when a middle-aged man, James Alexander Ritchie, was charged with signing a’'false name to a letter which he left at the office of the Rotorua Chronicle with the object of getting the editor to publish it aa if it were genuinely written by the person whose signature it bore. The letter contained an attack upon the Perpetual Forests ■ Company and the State Forest Service. . The Crovvn Solicitor said the' accused had been in the Rotorua district endeavouring to induce the forest workers in the two services to form a labour union, _ The letter which he sent to the Chronicle was signed with the nom de plume “Forest Worker,” and beneath, in a circle, was written,Robert Yule, Rainbow Mountain, Rotorua.” This purported to be the signature of the writer of the letter, It was . the custom ■of newspaper editors, continued counsel, to require the writers of letters for publication to sign their names as a guarantee of their bona fides where a nom de plume was used. The editor of the paper happened to recognise the handwriting of the prisoner, but before placing the matter in the hands of the police he made an exhaustive search for Robert Yule, but could find no such person. Counsel pointed out that publication of the letter in the Rotonua Chronicle would have exposed the editor to an action for libel, '

Charles Henry Campbell Worthington, editor of, the Rotorua Chronicle, said he recognised _ the. writing as that of the accused, with which he was acquainted, as Ritchie had written other letters to the paper. Witness did not publish the letter.' '

_ Cross-examined, witness said he published in the Chronicle a short time before a report of.arbitration proceedings in which certain statements were made by witnesses derogatory-, to the Forest Services. He did not regard the letter as an answer to the proceedings, , William Treavear Morrison, conservator of forests for the State in the Rotorua region, said there were over 600 men working in the State forests under his charge. The' statement in Ritchie’s letter were mainly untrue. There was no one in the State Forest Service named Robert Yule.

Counsel for the defence said that Ritchie was employed to organise a union 11 11 King the workers in the forest camps. In the course of his work he enrolled a man who gave his name as Robert Yule. The records would show this. He later received a letter from Yule. Ritchie copied this letter andi when he handed the copy to the paper he did so as an agent of Yule. 1

The accused said he was the authorised organiser of the New Zealand Workers’ Union and went to the forest camp to endeavour fo organise the workers there. He produced the butts of his enrolment book, the last signature in the book being that of Robert Yule. The Tetter which he took to the Chronicle office was merely a copy of a letter he received from Yule, which he now produced to the court. iTlie original letter was handed to him in Rotorua by Yule, who said St was for publication in the paper. The accused said he told Yule that the letter would not be published as it was written on both sides of the paper. Yule then said. I will leave the letter with you,” and left in a taxi. Accused took the letter to the, office of- 3lr Carter, a next day, and asked the managing clerk if he would type a copy of it. The typewriter was in use, so he asked for two sheets of paper and went over to' the library and copied it orM He then took the copy to the Chronicle office and placed it in the letter-box.

Cross-examined, the accused said he had not seen Yule since the time he handed him the. letter. He knew of no reason why Yule should not have put a stamp on the letter and posted it to the Chronicle. It was true that the accused was responsible for breaking up a storekeeping monopoly at one of the camps, and it was also true that the letter contained a distinct “pat bn the back” for his organising work. When asked if he got a man named Jack Oldfield to write the original, the accused strenuously denied that he had.

The Crown solicitor said he proposed to put in certain letters written by Oldfield, the writing in which corresponds! with the original in question His Honor would not petmit 'this to be done as the letters had aot bt-en sworn to;

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.