RESIDENT MAGISTRATES COURT

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 603, 15 December 1871, Page 2

RESIDENT MAGISTRATES COURT

THIS DAY. (Before Thomas Bockhana, Esq., R.M.) The usual weekly sitting for the recovery of smal debts, &c, was held this morning, when the following remarkable case was heard. FISHER V. LA.VEX. A FO(U)WL MURDER. This was an action to recover 6s, the value in money of some pretty ducks that were " destroyed" by the defendant who in replication complained of cocks and hens and geese and cats and other vagrant domestics which kept up an everlasting but inharmonious korero. The plaintiff had a pure well of water undefined, and seeing it became impure he knew it was a fowl bird that dirtied his spring.

Mr Beveridge appeared for the deceased, Mr J B Russell appeared to show cause. The defendant pleaded guilty to the fowl murder, but declared that he did no damage to anybody, for the brood waß a d am age to the neighbourhood. (A. learned gentleman interposed that the ducks looked "fishy.") There was considerable difficulty in getting at the circumstances o£ the tragedy, which wa3 made more mysterious by the statement of the defendant that they " got into a mess by getting up the spout." The parties lived in Summer-street, Mount Eden; since they became neighbours they experienced the winter of discontent. The cause turned upon the efficiency of the fence, and whether the ducks were killed in defendant's garden. The complainant said the wretched defendant killed her beautiful ducks in an unenclosed swamp. She saw him do it. The defendant's wife was called, and described the nuisances. A good deal of argument ensued upon the construction of the Act, which was intituled the Protection of Gardens Act (Provincial Council), and enumerated various offencos that came within the Act, and the creatures included in it. A gentleman in Court said he was present when the Act was passed, and had great experience of nuisances. He stated that a next door neighbor of his had a fowl-house built up against his bed-room, in which were housed five geese and twenty-five goslings, three cocks and six hens, with four broods of chickens,_ a house full of fantail pigeons, and a pigstye with three pigs in it. The result was a concert (with variorum notes) at five o'clock, which put his hair on end exactly at day-break. He sends the creatures to perdition every morning, but unhappily (for him) they would not go. He thought that people who sot such nuisances down beside their neighbours houses should live in the fowl-house and take the consequences,

The Worthy magistrate said there was great conflict in the evidence as well as between the parties. Were the ducks in the garden ; and then, was it a garden ; and then, were they killed in a swamp ; and further, were they killed on Sunday, when he should have boon at church, or on Monday, when ho should have been at work. It's very doubtful, and the Court couldn't say. The safest plan was to record a nonsuit. Complainant : Alas ! that will not restore the ducks to life. Defendant: Hang the ducks. Clerk to the Court: Tho costs are £1 10s 6d. Amount sued for six shillings. Precious ducks !