BY-STREET BACCHANAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 87, 4 July 1927, Page 12

BY-STREET BACCHANAL

HOST LOSES HIS MONEY GUEST CHARGED WITH THEFT A BY-STREET bacchanal on morning resulted in one of the carousers losing £6 IQs. Another of them stood in the dock at the Police Court this morning.' He was Thomas McFadden, aged 49, who was charged with robbing DaVid O’Connell of £ 6 10s, with violence. David O’Connell, a newspaper vendor, said he left home at 10 a.m. on June 26. He had £32 in his possession at the time. At the corner of Nelson and Victoria Streets he met three men, one of whom he knew. He asked this man if he could buy a bottle of whisky. The drink was bought, and the party went down a side-street and drank it. Witness then handed over £1 for another bottle. After the second bottle was finished he had no recollection of what happened apart from the fact that he lost the money and had been arrested for drunkenness. James Edward Rowntree, who had kept the party under observation, said that he saw McFadden kneel down beside O’Connell, twist his arm, pull his coat open and extract a roll of notes from an inside pocket. When McFadden saw witness, he became abusive, he said. Another man, who was with the witness Rowntree, said that McFadden had told him to “go for his turkey while his boots were good.” McFadden reserved his defence and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.