SEDITIOUS UTTERANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1687, 17 March 1917, Page 3

SEDITIOUS UTTERANCE.

Auckland, March 15. At the Pukekohe Police Court, h’afo Antonovich, aged thirty-one, a native of Dalmatia, was charged with having made a disloyal and seditious statement in (he hen ring of his family. This is the (irsl case of the kind heard in the Dominion. The words used were: “The Kaiser is it great man, and 1 take oil my hat (o him. The British sire the biggest mugs 1 ever saw. Aly brothers :tre giving yon it good licking now. 1 am a German, not an Austrian. Kitchener was the biggest mug I ever saw. lie would not hold his candle to the Kaiser. The Kaiser is a second Napoleon. He is the cleverest man ever horn. The first thing I will do when Germany wins the war is to'kick your . I would sell itll my secrets to Germany. Why should J be naturalised and light for British?” The police staled that the accused hits been in Hie district only a few months, ami posed as a naturalised Dalmatian, but there is reason to believe that he is unnaturalised. The accused's mother-in-law, Amelia Turnbull, in evidence, said Mud accused made the statements ill the breakfast table in the presence of his wife and herself. Counsel for the accused submitted that the ease was only a family (piarrel, and the regulations never intended to pry into the private houses. Accused denied making the statement. The magistrate, in imposing twelve months’ imprisonment, said he would place the facts before the Alinister for him to decide whether internment should be substituted for imprisonment.