THE FRACAS AT ASHBURTON.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1114, 29 April 1911, Page 6

THE FRACAS AT ASHBURTON.

COURT ACQUITS MR, FRIEDLANDER. (By Telegraph-Press Association.) Ashburton, April 28. At the Magistrate's Court to-day, before Air. V. G. Day, S.M., Charles Reid charged Hugo Friedlander with assaulting him by striking him with a walking-stick at a meeting of tho Ashburtoh Hospital aud Charitablo Aid Board on April' 3. Counsel for Friedlander made an apology to Reid for what had been done, or, at least, he reiterated a public apology, which Friedlander' had made at a recent public meeting, stating that ho regretted that, although ho had been insulted, he 'had not acted in a more gentlemanly and dignified way. Counsel for the prosecution declined to accept this, and would not allow thp case to drop. The evidence given was a recapitulation of that published of tho fracas, and, in giving judgment, tho magistrate said that the whole incident was very trivial, and that 99 per cent, of men, who wero repeatedly called liars by another man, would have acted as Fricdlander had done. Rcid's dignity had been hurt more than his body, and ho would dismiss tho case under Section 92 of tho Justices of the Peace Act, 1908, defendant- to pay costs,