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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 944, 7 November 1879, Page 2

Captain Mellish, the Christchurch R.M., has long been known for his magisterial eccentricities and official vagaries. Here is a late instance. A young fellow was lately charged before him with having shot at a man with a gun. The gun certainly was an air gun, but yet a gun at that, loaded too with a ball. The defence was that the prisouer had only aimed at a post, and not at the complainant. But of course, we all know what such defences are when handled by the glib tongue of " the lawyer of the period." The complainant, however, swore that not only had the prisoner fired directly at him, but when he charged ; him with it the latter aimed at him again. When cornered, the lad asked complainant " not to split upon him." When passing sentence, Captain Mellish remarked " that the lad had done a foolish thing, and he would only be fined five shillings and cost." Here is a good precedent for depreda^g larrikins. At the risk of five shillings and costs they may go and make a target of any beef-eating ratepayer and keep their hands m at bushranging. Thus it is that the Queen's peace, "Her Crown and dignity," are preserved in '«artain parts of New Zealand. Women has nearly five hundred stylos for arranging her hair, and yet man has thn unAno.it.v m flftv she is not an orierin-