ORCHARD ROBBERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2987, 16 January 1926, Page 1

ORCHARD ROBBERS.

“THE WORST OF PESTS.”

A member of that long-suffering section of the community, the fruitgrowers, took the unusual course the other day of asking a magistrate to make a staement to the newspaper to assist in the hitter struggle against the nvost of pests—the orchard robbers (says a Chritchurch paper). During the hearing of a charge against three boys of robbng a cherry orchard, F. A. Thorne, one of the proprietors of the orchards, was given''permission to address the bench, and said that it was time the public realised that that fruit is not public property. This applied not only to boys but to adults as well. The boys dealt with had only come along after the proprietors of the orchard had decided to make a case of the next persons caught stealing. The magistrate (Mr Widdowson, 5.M.,): It is police protection you want ? Mr Thorne: The police cannot do anything. What we want is to educate the public through the newspapers. He continued that these days the fruitgrowers had to fight the elements, the pests which attacked trees and fruit, and also had to ait half the night watching for robbers. The magistrate: The human pests. Air Thorne asked the magistrate to make a statement regarding stealing from orchards. The magistrate said that he had been asked to do a difficult thing. It was a great pity that people did not realise their obligations to one another. Tin’s sort of thing had been going on h r years and years and education did lot seem to alter it a hit. All he could say was that growers wanted to apply for more police protection. Air Thorne said the police could not sit up at nights with any better success than could the owners of orchards. There the question was dropped.