MR WAKEFIELD AND THE DOG ACTS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3336, 11 December 1883, Page 3

MR WAKEFIELD AND THE DOG ACTS.

[To the Editor.] Str,— Having heard that some simpleminded people who are not aware of Mr Sutter’s peculiarities, have taken his letter concerning myself and the Dog Acts seriously, I think it only right to Elate that it is nothing more than one of his practical jokes. In short, there is not a word of truth in it. Mr Sutter Ba y S —«In the session of 1881, Mr E. Wakefield, then member for Geraldine, brought in and passed, an Act to amend the Act of the previous year. It contained the following clause : —“Where any person without having been summoned to enforce payment the license fee shall have paid the registration fee for any dog after the expiration of the time limited for such registration, he shall be exempted from the penalty imposed by the said Act, &c.” Well, when his Bill came before the B.M. Courts of the colony no one could deal with it. The first thing in the session of 1882, a Committee was formed on the Bill to amend it. They found it, however, so worthless that they reported to the House that it should be repealed, and handed in a draft of a new amended Bill which was passed, sending Mr Wakefield’s Bill to the waste paper basket. So ended the history of Mr Wakefield’s Dog Act.” The whole story is a pure invention from beginning to end. I never passed a Dog Registration Act, good, bad, or indifferent, in my life. The Act of 1881 was drawn by the Solicitor-General and introduced by the Honorable Mr Dick, and if it is the miserable rubbish which Mr Sutter says it is, his friend and leader, Mr Dick, is to blame for it, not I. In fairness to Mr Dick, however, 1 should state that the nonsensical clause which Mr Sutter in his letter professes to quote from the Act of 1881 j is not to be found in that or any other statute that I ever met with.—l am&c., Edward Wakefield.