UNSATISFACTORY EVIDENCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1349, 29 January 1912, Page 4

UNSATISFACTORY EVIDENCE.

MAGISTRATE'S STRONG COMMENT. (By Telegraph.-Soocial Correspondent.) Auckland, January 28. A woman named Irene Bates, who said sho was employed in a clothing factory, yesterday brought a suit for maintenance against a young German sailor, who sho declared was the father of her child. The defendant denied any knowledge of the plaintiff, except that ho had met her at a party. Since then ho had left New Zealand and gone back to Germany, "put in" the two years' service in tho German Navy at Kiel required of him, returned to the Dominion, and lived hero twelve months before he was approached by tho plaintiff or anyone on her behalf, or before he knew anything about the birth of her child. . Mr. Kettle, S.M., in dismissing tho 'information, remarked that the case was one of the most extraordinary that had ever come before him. He was quite accustomed to palpably perjured evidence every day of the week almost, but hero he had the evidence of the complainant and her sister against the testimony of one man, ami he was by no means satisfied with the evidence for the plaintiff. Moreover, she had gone to a magistrate and obtained a warrant for the defendant's arrest, which was apparently quite an unnecessary preceding. The man was subjected to an indignity which would nave bren bad enough if lie wero n British subject. lie was a foreigner, and hero in New Zealand foreigners were not dealt with in this fashion, for the man had b?en arrested without: any just cause beiii? shown, and u)>3ii the false statement that he was about to leave New Zealand, to which ho had voluntarily returned after completing his service in (he Gorman Navy. Jlis Worship could not believe that .the evidence given by tho plaintiff and her sister wns true. lie dismissed the information, and asked the police (o take, the matter in hand, as ho had no doubt gross perjury had been oommithxL