WOMAN CREATES A SCENE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 912, 1 November 1910, Page 3

WOMAN CREATES A SCENE

IN MAGISTRATE’S COURT

According to the N.Z. Times, au incident fraught with considerable humour and not a little pathos occurred at the Magistrate’s Court on Saturday morning. Mr W. G. Riddell, S.M., had just passed a sentence of twenty-one days’ imprisonment upon a young man named Alfred Louis Gibson on a charge of using obscene language, when a young woman, a friend of Gibson’s, who was standing among the loungers in the body of the Court, was carried away by indignation against the magistrate. She yelled in a high-pitched, passionate voice, “You ought to be hung.” “ Arrest that woman,” commanded the magistrate. Later on the woman, who seemed to be acting under intense excitement, apparently accentuated by drink, was placed in the dock and charged with interrupting the proceedings of the court. “ Do you plead guilty or not guilty ?” said the clerk. “ I dou’t know that I’m guilty of anything,” replied the accused. “Is she intoxicated ?” inquired His Worship. “ She apparently has had some drink,” replied Constable Jones. His Worship ordered her removal, and suggested that she be brought up a little later in the day. The accused objected, and voiced her protest loudly. “I’m not drunk,” she said, “ and I’ve said nothing to you.” “Oh, very well ; I’ll see you again,” said his Worship. “No. You’ll see me now,” retorted the accused, and again broke out in a rambling statement, which was cut short by a constable seizing her by the arm and hurrying her out of the dock. “ Keep your big hands to yourself ; I’m quite able to walk without your help,” she said as she shook herself free from the policeman’s grasp, and as she passed along the corridors to the watchhouse she could be heard expressing .in no uncertain term her contempt for the whole proceedings. About an hour later, when her excitement had subsided, the woman was again brought before the magistrate, who severely reprimanded her for her conduct. His Worship explained that she was liable to a fine of ,£lO or a term of imprisonment for acting In the manner she did. However, he would take into consideration the fact that she was very much excited at the time, and discharged her. He hoped that she would take a lesson from the case and be more careful in the future. The name of the interrupter was Agnes Mary Reardon.