DULL DUNEDIN DETECTIVES.

NZ Truth, Issue 144, 21 March 1908, Page 6

DULL DUNEDIN DETECTIVES.

Abortionists Operate Undiscovered.

; Patrick Herbert is Dunedin's Chief ! Detective. He's a genial sort of a cuss, but he's a bad habit of kidding himself that he's a remarkable smart man. Paddy holding forth < v his coups to a ring of adoring • onlookers is a source of unrestricted gladness., He has certainly caught a thief or two, and laid more than one wretched moll by the heels. . But any mug can do that, with decent luck. A detective is made for purposes of prevention, more than for running about catching evil-doers, and robbing the ordinary policeman of half his glory, and Paddy Herbert and his myrmidons don't do much m the prevention line. "Truth" wilK give an instance, and show that Pat has a big part of . him mug. It is. only about twelve months ago since James Hayne, a Dunedin chemist, got mixed up m the hottest kind of water because he. was alleged to have been, fooling about a young single woman, with illegal instruments. The job did not prove too successful, for the. young woman died., after making certain statements, and the brief a£ quaintanceship that eventuated between James and the amiable Paddy was of an ■ extremely . intimate and personal nature. But an intelligent jury, on the hoary old principle of the moke that scooted and the stable door, acquitted James, and he went back to the little shop to again exhibit the -white flower of blameless life. Somewhere about the same time a young woman passed out m the house \of an ultra-respectable dame m George-street, and the scan-dal-mongers nodded their toothless heads and whispered ; but nothing came of this; the lady was top respectable, evidently. These strand deaths .constantly occur, and -not ons of the intelligent lazy policemen think it worth Ms while to ask ""wJiaffbr .?'.,' Some unfortunate is at once prosecuted when a young woman dies under circumstances that warrant an assumption that she didn't want motherhood, but one never hears of a case being brought without this wretched accompaniment -of' suspicious illness or death. "If one did, one might begin to think that a detective force is worth its salt, instead of its being A CROWD OF OVER-DRESSED DUDES, loafing about the Courts during the day and smoking m front of the theatres at nights. In one wellknown street in' Dunedin there's a very respectable house. From the trim Venetian blinds to the neat picket fence, its outlines suggest that it is nothing if, not owned by one of the "unco quid." It's got Prohibitionist and lay-reader-on-Sundays and mix-salt-with-sugar-othcr-days kind of respectability writ large all over it, and the good people who are daily m its vicinity never look at it askance. Yet there are more than seventeen people m Dunedin" know things about that house. It is occupied by a professional abortionist, and, at the moment writing, there are 'five women sheltered, there undergoing treatment of a special and illegal kind. Four are, young single women belonging to the town of somewhere m the country not too far away. The other is a married woman, and she comes from Christchurch. This establishment has been carried ' on for some time now, and the nature of .it; is far" from being entirely, -unknown . Paddy Herber fc and kis four or five assistants have about thje easiest kind of job ; simply to hangabout and look out for anything of this nature. The fact that they seldom have a case of any kind seems to explain why it is .that they' wear patent leather, boots, and look happy and fat, ,and why the little curative institution has been allowed to remain so long unmolested. This naner holds no brief to decry abortionists. Like the demi-monde,' abortionists will exist contemporaneous with civilisation and trousers, and New Zealand will have a fair pro-' portion. But just now t'hev are exceedingly unlawful, and whether they justify their practice or not, the fact remains that one or more, carr^in^ on a noisy and lucrative business m Dunedin, have not been m any wav disturbed by . over-zealous 'tecs. Scores of . women come to Dunedin every year, ami undergo illegal operations, and go gladly home again, while Chief Detective Paddy Herbert aits calmly m his office and smokes ..a peaceful and contented pipe. Why ?