THE SEAMY SIDE.

Waikato Times, Volume 101, Issue 16948, 10 November 1926, Page 4

THE SEAMY SIDE.

TALES TO MAGISTRATE (MODERN VANITY. (By R. E. Cordcr, in London Daily Mail.) Two barristers, two policemen, mm three taxicab drivers occupied an hour at Thames Police Court yesterday deciding whether or not a fourth taxicab driver had stood on the pavement or in the roadway. The accused driver had invoiced his union to defend him, hence a very trivial offence became a serious case. "Vanity, just vanity," declared Mr Cairns, the magistrate, who observed that certain types of modorn young men had such an exaggerated idea of their own importance that they resented any reflection on their highly developed age. Three drivers obeyed an officer's order and went into a cafe, the fourth objected to any interference and was promptly arrested. "He had an exaggerated sense of his own dignity and importance,'' said Mr Cairns. "He ought to have joined his friends and washed down his dignity with coffee. He is an egotistical obstructionist on a pavement which in this part of the city is very congested, and I will discourage this kind of vanity by a fine of 20s and £3 costs." There is more in this case than meets the eye. There is resentment against constituted authority, and the fact that two barristers were engaged on such a small affair shows that an ordinary incident of discipline might be magnified into a political situation. Defiance of constituted authority for the peace and comfort of the common weal, is the effect of an insidious cause. Mr Cairns, in inflicting a fine of 20s and £3 costs, denounced an exaggerated ego which resented any interference with its license; but, as I have said, this defiance of discipline may have a wider significance. Hence the employment of learned counsel to fight over what what should have been a 5s fine,

Mother-in-law jolces are in bad taste, I admit, but I must record the excuse of a man charged at Tower Bridge Police Court with having been drurfk. JJs_ said he received a letter from his father-in-law saying that his mother-in-law was dead, and he simply could r.ot contain his joy.

At the same court yesterday a weary looking man said, "I was in a public-house' and put a shilling down on the counter. A woman picked it up, and I looked her in the eye and said, 'Open your milts,' and then the harmony started."

Mr Tassell, the magistrate at Tower Bridge, does not use strong language as a rule, but'yesterday .he made William James Fawn squirm. "I have never heard of a worse case," said the magistrate, his words (inkling like icicles. "You are a contemptible scoundrel, and you have got hold of the life's "savings of a young girl who could ill afford to lose them. You will go to prison for 12 months with hard labour." The prisoner, who had been previously convicted, obtained £42 from the girl, a typist, who supported her widowed mother, on the pretext of buying a house. Also he persuaded Ircr to advance money on a patent which he said would make their fortunes. Middle-aged and plausible, he was an outstanding example of the fact that you. cannot tell a confirmc-d criminal by his face. An open countenance is the criminal's best asset.