South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1883.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3341, 17 December 1883, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1883.

The case of James Cheyne, convicted for common assault at the Supreme Court on Saturday, ought to receive the fullest publicity, together with the impressive remarks of the Judge in passing sentence. The whole affair was undoubtedly a half-drunken freak or practical joke, played by a foolish tippler on a nervous traveller. The picture has its comical side. The prosecutor, an inoffensive German, was going home on a moonlight night, and while walking alongside his cart at the entrance of the Waimate Gorge, he was suddenly confronted by a man who called upon him to “ stand.” This he appears to have done with much alacrity and subsequently to have expressed his willingness to “do anything ” the stranger required. He had observed that the brigand carried something, he believed a knife, ready in his belt, and when the terrible apparition declared itself to be “ Dick Turpin,” the honest man was ready to die with fright. As soon as he conveniently could,the stranger making no opposition, the traveller mounted the horse which his assailant had ridden, and galloped off for dear life towards Waimate, never looking back. The utterance of that magic name “ Dick Turpin” was really an aggravated assault itself, when made in the ear of a German. It is impossible to say what terrible pictures it may have conjured in his mind of Der Teufel or somebody equally formidable. No robbery was perpetrated, and the assault made subsequently, was in itself most insignificant. But the learned Judge unfolded to the jury something more than this. He showed them the social bearings of such cases, and pointed out that the prisoner, though probably intending no felony, had been guilty of imitation of one of the most heinous offences known to the law. Had the jury found the foolish man guilty on the first indictment, it would have gone hard with him, for the Judge stated plainly that he should have inflicted a very heavy punishment indeed. The knowledge that we have on the Bench a Judge who would use his power with the utmost rigor to suppress crimes of violence, if the occasion arose, is a very salutary knowlege for persons addicted to violence to acquire. Any attempt even in jest, even in a drunken freak, to revive a reign of terror in the community and to induce foolish youths to emulate the Jack Sheppards, the Claude Duvals or the Dick Turpins of the good old days, will assuredly in this colony be followed by swift and effectual punishment. This is a lesson which our youths and the idlers and tipplers of the community would do well to lay to heart; and those who are given to practical joking of this sort may as well know at once that they are playing with fire.

As a public duty we direct attention to the fact that yesterday evening, during Church time, two or three little girls, about to cross the Public School ground were afraid to do so, and returned home, On perceiving a man half-con-cealed among the trees who was beckoning and striving to induce them to go to him. The oldest of the three little girls appears to have had the good sense to return into the public road. It is needless to do more than record what took place, in order that parents may be aware that the vilest crime under Heaven is not yet stamped out, and that there are even in this community, fiends in human form, from whose clutches, innocent little ones need to be carefully guarded. Unfortunately no one was at hand to identify the fellow, but it may be as well to let the public know that such a creature is about.