BRITISH LAW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 228, 25 September 1940, Page 5

BRITISH LAW.

GRIM WHEELS TURN.

UNDER NAZI BLITZKRIEG.

(By VINCENT SHEEAN.)

LONDON, August 24.

While the "Battle of Britain" goes on around the English coast, the machinery of English justice operates with its ageold, careful authority.

Your correspondent spent this afternoon at a Magistrate'* Court in the Bow Street police station, listening to a large number of cases for non-pay-ment of rates and taxes, as well as several for showing lights during a blackout. This last was my own crime. The summons says that I "did, during the hours of darkness, cause a light to be displayed." After sitting there all afternoon hearing cases, I discovered that my summons was for next Tuesday. I could have been keeping my appointment with German planes on Shakespeare Cliff, but anyhow there I was and here are some of the cases I heard.

"Floor Bottom." A woman who keeps a lodging house was brought up by Holborn Borough Council for arrears in rates. She said her business had fallen almost to nothing ae the result of the war and she -could not pay. The magistrate examined her record, decided she was too much in arrears and issued a "distress warrant" under which some part or all of her furniture will be seized. She then, presumably will have no business at all unless her lodgers wish to sleep on the floor. Another woman was in arrears on rates for a house which she usually lets as workrooms, studios or email flats. All the rooms in the house are now untenanted. She said she could pay nothing as she had no money. ( At one point, when the magistrate asked her what was the matter with her property that it remained untenanted. she said, "How can you expect people to take a flat when they are told they may be bombed out in two minutes."

She apparently wished to make a long speech about what she called the '"truth," but two stalwart officers removed her from the courtroom over her loud protests. She got another month in which to find 6onie money. Terrible Stories. Small shopkeepers had terrible stories to tell about falling incomes, and in most cases, especially when some small payment was being made, the magistrate adjourned their summonses for a month or two. One woman who sells newspapers said she could now pay one pound on the arrears of her rates, because her landlord had lowered the rent. One man, obviously an Italian although with an English name, testified he had made only ten pounds eight shillings during the whole period since last September and could pay nothing on his arrears. He produced account books to prove this extraordinary feat of endurance. The magistrate asked how he had kept alive during the war, and the man replied that he had eaten stock from his shop. The magistrate said he' would soon have to get in a bigger stock of groceries and gave him fourteen days to pay.

Persona answering summonses for blackout infringements were nearly all domestic servants and got off with a few sharp words and a fine of £1. One such infringement, however, was committed by an incorporated company. For a light left burning in a lavatory, a fine of £40 was imposed. Among the tax cases was that of a pretty blonde woman, who said she used to keep a shop for evening dresses on Regent Street, but the war had annihilated her business, the shop was closed, the stock sold and she has had no' resources except a little help from her son, who is a subaltern in the army. Her' furniture will be seized.—N.A.N.A.