“ Made Mincemeat.”

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1922, Page 1

“ Made Mincemeat.”

\ qoe»—< POLICE WITNESS MAKES GOOD. i CROSS-EXAMINING COUNSEL I PAYS TRIBUTE. j WELLINGTON, Aug 11. i During the trial of Thomson, yesterday, for alleged complicity in the theft of the money from the Paekakariki safe, a strong passage-of-arms took place between Mr H. F. O'Leary, counsel for the accused, and Senior-Sergeant Cummings, one of the witnesses for the Crown. The argument, which was of a goodnatured’ sort, on both sides, raged round the question a.s to whether or not the senior-sergeant, when questioning Thomson, should have told Thomson that he was "'actually seen in the company of Biel and Carmichael, on the night they were alleged to : have opened tho safo. j The sergeant’s answer was: “Do you j think I was going to give him m,v j brief?” j Asked, several times, if be could I not tell the court just where lie was j on the night of January 21st, the po-1 lice sergeant, at last, said: “No, I don’t remember; but I would remeiu!>er if I had been out stealing the Paekaknriki safe.” (Laughter). “But wasn’t it your place,” asked counsel, “to establish the man’s guilt, and not for him to have to establish his innocence?” “Ob! yes,” said the sergeant; “1 know that’s all right in law: but in actual practice it doesn’t always work out.” (More laughter).

Successive efforts on. the part of counsel, to pin tile [police officer down to any admission, of wrongdoing in the matter, wore entirely unsuccessful. considerable amusement being caused in court by tbe sergeant’s ready and adequate counters to counsel’s attacks.

Counsel, in his subsequent address to tbe jury, made capital of this incident “A mere child” in the hands of this clever senior-sergeant, who bad simply “made mincemeat” of him. said Air O’Leary, what earthly chance in an argument with such a man would his client, Thomson, have had?

For Children’s Hacking Cough. Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure