“Uirlar Section 25—" Retired Clergyman Lays Down Law

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 43, 13 May 1927, Page 11

“Uirlar Section 25— " Retired Clergyman Lays Down Law

PURCHASE OF STOLEN BICYCLE JOHN GRAHAM HUGHES used to be a clergyman, but he would have made a good lawyer, to judge from his showing in the Police Court this morning.

A chance that comes to few —that of laying down the law to a magistrate —came to him this morning,

when, along with a boy named Edward Victor Evins, Marion Fuller, a secondhand dealer, and Hughes’s own nephew, Thomas Reginald Crawford, he came along to the court to ask Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., to decide the knotty problem of the ownership of a bicycle.

Briefly, the history of the machine was this: It belonged to the boy Evins in the first place, but was stolen from him and sold to Mrs. Fuller. The ex-Rev. John G. Hughes subsequently invested 30s in the bicycle, and presented it to his nephew, Crawford, to ride to and from school. After cross-examining Evins, in the masterful manner of a seasoned legal veteran, on his identification of the machine, the retired clergyman stepped into the witness-box, and, opening a black notebook in which he had written cut a carefully-worded speech to the court, began an oration that for phraseology alone would have done credit to a framer of statutes.

He had bought the machine in “market overt,” he said, and in spite of all the magistrate had to say on the subject of there being no such thing as an open market in New Zealand, he persisted that he had a clear title to the machine. He was in the middle of a lengthy

statement in which he “protested against the injustice” of all sorts of things when Chief Detective Cummings intervened. “This is not evidence,” he said.

“Oh, let him go," said the magistrate, who appeared to be enjoying himself. “He’s lost his 305.” The former parson then went on to quote various statutes to prove his case, when Mr. Hunt interrupted his flow of eloquence with a parable. Supposing someone else had stolen his gold presentation watch and sold it, the magistrate put it to him, would he consider that the person who bought it had the right to keep it? “In open market, undoubtedly,” was the righteous assertion. The speech from the witness-box was threatening to turn into a veritable verbal brook when the bench interrupted again.

“Now, look here, I’m not going to sit here all day and listen to you. I’m busy. The bicycle belongs to Evins. You have your civil remedy.” “I’m not going to let you argue law with me, any more than you would let me argue theology with you,” continued Mr. Hunt.

“Under Section 25 ” protested Hughes. “Step down, I've had enough of that,” said the magistrate abruptly, and the retired clergyman, tucking the book containing his carefullyprepared speech under his arm, departed, still muttering “statutes.”