A WARNING TO NEWSPAPER SELLERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5566, 15 May 1896, Page 3

A WARNING TO NEWSPAPER SELLERS.

• : At one of the London courts recently a newsvendor was brought up on a charge of obtaining what was described as " a sum of money " under false pretences. As the sum in question amounted to no more than one penny, it is hardly necessary to say that the case was one in which the point of interest was the principle at issue, and not the amount of the claim; It appears that, like those who cry peace when there is no peace, the offending newsvendor had cried " Another murder in Soho" at a time when that particular region was totally free from serious crime. On the case being called on the prosecutrix de r posed that on Sunday afternoon she saw the prisoner in Broad Street with some newspapers, crying out, " Another horrible murder in Soho by a Frenchman." She gave him a penny, and he handed her a Weekly Sun, but there was no "horrible murder" amongsb- its contents. The prisoner here interposed: "I was calling out, ' A brutal outrage by a Frenchman in France,' and if the constable will hand me a copy of The News of the World I will point; it out." The paper was handed over, but the prisoner was unable to find even this milder piece of news; in fact he had not an outrage of any kind in his wallet. The Judge, in commenting on the affair said that the deception was one of a very annoying kind. He was unwilling to put the heavy machinery of the law in motion and so would remand the prisoner for one week. He would then have time to think it over, and would perhaps not offend again. The case is interesting, as showing that- even the seller of a penny newspaper needs to exercise circumspection in describing the quality of his goods. In this colony it is true even the victim of fraud remains silent when the modest sum of .a penny is involved. But the human temper, like the Latin "femina," is proverbially a fickle and' unreliable thing. Who knows but that, some footballer, excited "bythe cry of "full account," may not be driven to desperation when he finds that, instead of exciting details, he has only the scores in the first spell?