A Morning at the Police Court

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 1, 18 September 1880, Page 4

A Morning at the Police Court

HALF-PAST ten and the Police Court just about to commence. Mr. Barstow, usually the most punctual, as well as the most beneficent of beaks, has not arrived yet, and a general air of expectancy pervades the atmosphere. Constable McClellan, list of cases in hand, is walking uneasily about the floor of the Court. Clerk Cunningham appears to be engaged in a conversation of surpassing interest with Lawyer Laishley, and two reporters (thebuiiy Blackman and Rollicking-Ram-Robinson) are putting the finishing touches to their 'preliminary notes. Enter the "poetGrigg," who shuffles to his legitimate corner and gazes blankly round. He is a weird old man, with an extraordinary taste for commonplace horrors, and has spent ■*■*■'

his mornings at the Court for twenty-two years past. Should Grigg'* corner be pre-occupied the occupier receives a nudge and " move up " from the claimant, who considers he has a right by length of years to that special corner granted by Mr. Beckham fourteen years ago for the assistance Grigg gave that worthy magistrate in deciding difficult points of law. Grigg claims, also, the honour of being the first of New Zealand Poets, but in order to secure a posthumous fame refuses to publish his lucubrations, preferring to leave them to his executors with his other chattel* and effects. His poems are somewhat remarkable both in style and originality.

Punctually at five-and-twenty to eleven, Mr. Barstow ascends hi<* rostrum and, almost simultaneously the side-door flies open and a semiregal procession, headed "by Mr. Sub-Inspector Pardy, enters. The Sub-Inspector is a very fine-looking fellow, with a grand presence and a dignified though somewhat^ severe and ascetic manner. He throws his whole

1 heart into tlie cases which aye confided to his (care, and seems as much annoyed as the most able advocate when they break down. A man with an iron will himself it is easy to see he has but little sympathy with those who fall. He can control the " old Adam " Avithout difficulty, and doesn't understand why others fail so miserably. Under the management of Superintendent Thomson and Mr. Pardy the Auckland police have become a very capable force. There are of course "black sheep" amongst them, and occasionally this fact gets unpleasantly protruded. It is however gross injustice to blame Supt. Pardy for the laches of subordinates. His whole life is spent in trying to raise the tone and character of the Constabulary, and you may be quite sure when he catches a man exceediog his duty, or otherwise doing wrong, that man suffers.

But to return to the subject. The first name has been called nut and Peter Finn, charged with being drunk placed in the box. He is a wretched old man, whose nerves have evidently been much shattered by the " burst." When Mr. Cunningham looks at. him over his glasses and asks in an awful voice "Were you drunk last night ?" he starts timorously and murmurs something which might be either "yes" or "no," but is taken for the former. "Five shillings and costs" says the beak briskly, and before Peter knows where he is Constable McClellan has bundled him off

through the side door, and called Mary Anne Johnson. Mary Anne is an irreclaimable offender; who only came out of prison a few days ago. She must have been a moderately good-looking woman once, but now drink and its concomitant horrors have reduced her to the level of a female satyr. On Monday morning the good lady swore positively she would take the pledge and on the same night she was discovered in Queen-street in a hopeless, incapable, sort of drunk. Mr. Barstow mulcts her ten shillings and costs or the usual fdrm of imprisonment, and she is removed. The third and last drunk this morning is William Wiggins, a good-look-ing young bushman, who came down from the country to have a lark. He was rolling home to bed about two a.m. and singing a bacchanalian ditty, when Nemesis, in the shape of a too zealous constable descended upon him and he was walked off to the lock-up. I couldn't help feeling as this leaked out, if all the votaries of the wine cup were to be treated thus, some of " our most respected citizens " would occasionally figure conspicuously at the Police Court. A p< tty larceny case is the next on the li-t. The thi«'f, a great strapping Hecules who ought to be earning nine shillings a day from Mr, Fallon, declares that want made him do tin direful deed. Unfortunately the Court proves sceptical and consigns him to durance vile. Lftt us hope the Governor of Mount Eden will make him work. The three complainants whom our artist has depicted so faithfully, have come to give evid- ! ence against their male parent. In a fit of drunken fury he one evening seized the poker I and before these lads could overpower him, had "marked" them somewhat seriously. They don't appear to bear malice, neither do they seem particularly appalled at the idea of their father being sent to gaol. Possibly home may be more comfortable without him. A number of profoundly uninteresting trespass cases wind up the business of the clay, and then as Powell, the messenger, is hurrying towards Mr. Cunningham with a bundle of letters", orderly McCiellnn cries with a loud voice, " The Court is over," and we onlookers melt away.