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Fair Play, Volume I, Issue 26, 1 October 1894, Page 11

An old lady, hailing from Haggisland, once caused much fun in the Dunedin R.M. Court. She was sued for a small account, and when judgment was given against her, she hold up her hands in horror and declared that slio was being imposed upon. “ Whar’s ma doohtor?" sho cried, and tho “dochtor," a bouncing lass of about three and twenty, rushed excitedly to her mother’s assistance. Before leaving the Court sho threatened to assault the plaintiff, who hastily retreated before her awful frown. “ Eh, mercy 1” she exclaimed on taking her departure, “ it’s easy scon wo ’ro no in Scotland."

The horribly unsavoury Clarobut casos wore tho great sensation of the month in Napier. John Clarobut, a hoary old man of sixty, the father and grandfather of numerous respectable descendants, wus found guilty and sentenced to hard labour for seven years for criminally assaulting five or six young girls all between twelve and fourteen years of age. A singular feature of the case was the fuct that while tho prisoner was a poor, shabby-looking expressman, the girls, who were in the habit of meeting him on different occasions, sometimes singly, and sometimes in couples, belonged to well-to-do people— not one of them being poor. By their own confession, they pestered the old man for money, frequently going to the express stand to get small sums from him. The greed for money was at tho root of the whole "vile business. Many people who know him are of opinion that Clarobut is a lunatic.