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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5024, 1 May 1877, Page 2

IIN another column will be found a letter from Mr. Wra. Hutchison, iu answer to a complaint made by Mr. LeCren regarding a certain nuisance which has been permitted to exist in |oue of our public thoroughfares. On this subject ,his Worship has found an opportunity to say, something about the police; and of course that isomething is the reverse of complimentary. Mr. Hutchison has, or seems to have, for some reason best known to himself, on aversion to the police of Wellington, it we, may judge by the repeated unkindly references he has made to them in public; so anxious is he on this account apparently, that be would, reform them off the face of the earth, if we may use such an expression. In fact, to put a Wellington policeman in the path of Mr. Hutchison, .or to make allusion to the officers of that ■body of men, is to create an effect in his mind, beside which the excitement popularly supposed to he felt by a mad bull in the neighborhood of a red rag sinks into utter insignificance. I But leaving the subject of that gentleman’s evident “ feeling” towards the police, and turning to the facts of the case out of which the correspondence between Mr. Hutchison and ; Mr, LeCren arose, we may state that the former gentleman is incorrect in what he states. Persons are given authority by the City Surveyor or the Council to lodge timber in the streets whilst building is proceeding ; at least, if no such authority is given, the obstruction should not in the first instance be permitted ; and the probable effect of any iu-

terfereuce by the police, under such circumstances would be to expose them to a charge of being officious. The Mayor is quite correct as to the general' power of the police to enforce the City by-laws, and that they exercise that power we have frequently evidence of, in the shape of cases brought by them before the Resident Magistrate’s Court. In alluding to this subject, however, we are prompted chiefly by a desire to see fair play, which the police have not in reality been accorded in this instance.