February 03, 2010

The Court in 1910: Policeman's helmet cops it

By David Clarkson

Constable Beeby of the Lyttelton police had a tough time rounding up William Roberts who was apparently drunk and spoiling for a fight.

The episode came before Mr H W Bishop, Stipendiary Magistrate, as charges of using obscene language, assault and intentional damage of the policeman’s helmet, in the Lyttelton Times court reports 100 years ago today.

Roberts pleaded guilty and admitted he was drunk.

The police said he had been following some Lascar firemen — presumably workers from the Indian sub-continent, in Lyttelton as part of their work in a ship’s engine room — about the town, annoying them and wanting to fight.

When the constable tried to arrest him, Roberts resisted violently and struck the officer in the face.

Three members of the public had to help the officer carry him to the police station.

Roberts was fined a total of three pounds as well as being ordered to pay ten shillings and sixpence for the policeman’s helmet, damaged in the fracas.

If he could not pay, he was heading for jail for a month.

The paper also recorded a hearing about an assault in the bar of The Star hotel, in Addington, where one patron had whacked another patron over the head using a pewter pot as a weapon.

The attack caused a cut. It took place after a brief exchange in the bar.

The accused, Thomas Skeen, a tailor with two children, told police: “I’m not sorry. I would have used a tomahawk if I’d had it.”

He got a month’s jail.

In the Christchurch court, before Justices of the Peace, a couple of drunks were dealt with.

They were fined five shillings or had to spend a day in jail if they could not pay.

The reporter recorded: “One of them, a Hindu, said that he could not speak English and then proceeded to explain at great length that he had not been drunk.”

An editorial published in the Lyttelton Times in January 1910, all sounds rather familiar, even 100 years on:

“The statement published this morning concerning the prevalence of bicycle stealing in Christchurch is not reassuring. Four hundred cases of suspected theft were reported to the police last year and probably half as many again were not brought under official notice at all.

“Many of the bicycles were recovered and restored to their owners, simply because the thieves had abandoned the stolen property after enjoying an illicit ride. Others disappeared altogether and the amount of inconvenience occasioned to the owners can be easily imagined. On the other hand, the offenders, except in one or two isolated instances, get away scot free.

“The police are disposed to place a large share of the blame for the prevalence of this nuisance on the shoulders of the owners, on the ground that they are careless in leaving their bicycles in public places, but the machines are frequently removed from stands and from private passages as well as from the fronts of buildings and the public streets. The police are not fulfilling their whole duty when they advise that locks and chains should be more generally used.

“We should not like to believe that the theft of bicycles can be made commercially profitable in Christchurch, and indeed it would be unjust to an important section of the business community to offer such a suggestion, but it is difficult to see what becomes of the machines that are never recovered.”

This report was compiled from microfilm records of the newspaper, held in the New Zealand Room at the Christchurch City Library.