A DISPUTED TITLE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1298, 26 July 1886, Page 3

A DISPUTED TITLE.

“ rivis” has the following in the Otago , Daily Times. One of the disputants re- * ferred to is a lady well-known in Ashburton:—A dispute ai to title Is generally a . very dry affair ; but not always. It can be popularised if the disputants on'y go ‘ the proper way to work—after the manner, for example, adopted by a Mrs • Woodley and Mira Hughes in Wellington last week. cf title pending in the courts, with reference to the proprietorship of the Bank Hotel, and tnoy set themselves to work intelligently and successfully to arouse a genuine public interest In the case. The thing was easily done. Mrs Woodley being In possession, her fair antagonist, attended by a posse of 30 supporters, established her temporary head quarters in the dining room. Thereupon, Mrs Woodley unmasked her battery and opened fire. That is to say, she threw open the bar, and began to dispense liquor gratis to all comers. Miss Hughes, however, had a plentiful store of the same kind of ammunition In the dining room, where she promptly opened another free establishment, and the war raged merrily. We all remember the facility with which Mr Joseph Sedley was able to draw a dense crowd around him at Vauxhall, merely by an indiscriminate invitation to the public to share a bowl of rack punch with himself and his diddle-diddle-dariing But Mrs Woodley and Miss Hughes reallv meant business, and the YauxhaU crowd was a trifle compared to that which thronged the Bank Hotel during the memorable afternoon aod evening. At one time between two and three hundred people, “ mostly wharf loafers ” remarks a Wellington paper, occupied the rooms and the lobbies, and although members of the police force were present they were powerless to interfere in a private dispute involving qu- s tlons of title I should Imagine so Fancy the only question of tit e that has been contested upon really p pular principles being complicated by the inteiference of tbe police ! Mrs Woodley and Miss Hughes choore their own jury, and appealed to them by arguments well within their comprehension. The jury devoted themselves to the case with enthusiasm, carefully sampling everything offered in evidence, and their verdict when it comes will be the verdict of men who discharged their duty in no perfunctory manner, bnt absolutely continued their investigations as long as they could stand and see. Out legal procedure needs further reform in this direction.