BOY THRASHED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 June 1924, Page 11

BOY THRASHED.

A WOMAN FINED. (by TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.} AUCKLAND, June 12. Anna J. Stewart Hill was charged at the Police Court with having assaulted a Samoan hoy whom the accused and her husband brought to Auckland about 18 months ago, Mr Hill having been for several years in charge of Samoan plantations under the New Zealand Government. The hoy said in evidence that he was about 20 years of age. Atone place where he resided with Mrs Hill he was beaten with the end of a tyre with wires in it. He denied that he had stolen anything or given other cause for punishment. On May 27, at 9.30 a.m., he went into accused’s bedroom, Mrs Hill having told him to inform her when certain work was done. He denied interfering with the bed clothes, and when Mrs Hill came downstairs he was thrashed. Accused had thrashed him for not telling the truth, but he did not complain about that. He was well fed. The accused, in evidence, stated that she had on many occasions caught the hoy stealing. Referring to the bedroom occurrence, she said the hoy was inclined to be cheeky, and she called her husband. She cut the hoy with a whip wherever she could. “I gave him a good thrashing, and would do it again. I did not know the whip was steel lined, and was sorry about that.”

Air Boynton, S.M., said that if the wire in the whip had struck the hoy in the eye he would have lost his eye. The treatment he had received could not be allowed in New Zealand, though it might have been the custom in Samoa undff the Germans. He imposed a fine of £lO, half of which would go to the Samoan hoy, and £2 2s costs.