RAKLANDER, RUMORS AND RETRIBUTION

NZ Truth, Issue 1141, 13 October 1927, Page 3

RAKLANDER, RUMORS AND RETRIBUTION

"He Runs For His Life Every Time He Sees Me," Says Modern Amazon In Claim Against Swede CALLED TO APOLOGISE~AND WAS THROWN OUT

1 WHEN "Jock" Raklander fell foul of Annie Ottoway, of Airdale Street, Auckland, he may have overlooked the legend of "Ginger for pluck," for the principal woman m the case has very decided red tints m her crowning glory. Actuated by spite as he undoubtedly was, he made a great mistake when he set out to blacken her character. Say a pleasant thing about a person and it is safe to predict that it will die an early death, but a disparaging comment has more legs than a centipede. Hence, when Raklander made it hie business to cast imputations broadcast among women who knew Annie, she took him to court through the legal offices of Lawyer Merv. Adams and demanded £50 damages for slander. Raklander, not to be outdone, replied, through Lawyer Eric Inder, with an action for libel and £50 damages. The case was heard last week before Magistrate Page. "Dear Madame" The evidence of Annie Ottoway revealed' that Raklander had been a visitor to the home of witness and her husband and that an arrangement had been entered into by which, for the payment of 10/- a week, he could have his meals with them when he liked. During this friendship he had, it was alleged, borrowed some of their gramophone records and never returned them. But for some reason there was a split between them and Raklander, who had been lavishing his affections on a Miss Hume, a young woman who boarded with the Ottoway s, left them and transferred his attentions to a Miss Wiggins. After the,amiable Norseman had left he seems to have vented some spite he had for Annie Ottoway m particular, by circulating the most hurtful stories as to her reputation, apparently going out of his way to do so. This caused Annie to demand an apology. "I wrote to him about the things he had been saying," Annie told the bench when replying to Lawyer Adams. "I wrote to_ him on three occasions. He came to the house — to apologise, he said, and my husband thrashed him off the premises." Then she passed the word on to him through legal channels and Lawyer Inder replied on his behalf by demanding an apology for things, which, it was alleged, she had been saying about him. No apology had come along. And, added the plaintiff: "He still goes on talking." "You are claiming £50 damages?" asked Lawyer Adams. "I don't want money; I want my character cleared," was the reply. Raklander Calls Counsel then put m a letter which Annie had written to Mrs. Wiggins, whose daughter was being given some attention by Raklander. Dear Madame, — I believe your daughter has been going with a creature by name of Raklander, an Austrian. Just a word of advice. "Does she know his character? He is the lowest typo of the low. I am a married woman and he practically lived on my husband and I and then ran me down to the lowest. "If I thought he had enough money to marry your daughter I would have him m court to-morrow to pay for his slander and also for records taken out of my house. "He was put out of two houses m Grey Street, where you live . . . Mrs. Russell's house was one and Nesbit's the other, but Nesbits have shifted and it was the police that put him out. "He went with Miss Hume, the person you have seen; he owes her £7 and a ring. She is having him up for breach of promise. "I can prove all I say and I am afraid your daughter is a very poor judge of a man. I remain, yours sincerely, Mrs. A. 'Ottoway. P.S. You can see I am not afraid to sign my name."

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Representative.) 3 The tongue is one of the most costly portions of the ; human anatomy, as one "Jock" Raklander, a naturalized swede, discovered to his cost last week at Auckland, when an action for slander went against him and his ignorance of the eleventh commandment was responsible to a considerable extent for his downfall. HimminiHnuiiMiHiniiniiiiniiiHiiiiiiiiiiHinmnniHiiiitMiMHimHiiimuiiiiiHiiMiiiiuiuiHiiinHiiintiMniHHUiinniMHinMHiiiiiiiimitiiiiiiiimiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiniii

"You've lost nothing?" suggested Lawyer Inder, when he commenced his cross-examination of Annie. "I've shed a lot of tears," she said. Tour friends are sticking to you? — "Xes. It's strangers who might believe the stories this man has been putting round. He's been pointing me out m the street. He was not my friend; he was Miss Hume's friend. Miss Hume, she admitted, had asked her opinion of Raklander and she had replied: "Silence is golden." . Counsel: Wfty didn't you ask him to leave? — As an obligation to her (Miss Hume). Still answering Lawyer Inder, the plaintiff m the box related that Raklander had come to her house m the day-time. He came for his dinner and stayed about an hour. "Yes, that was all he did." Annie saw no harm m lending him records; there was no harm m lending them, even to a stranger. "He was Miss Hume's friend." As to the 10/-, it was for whatever

meals he liked to have. He could, if he chose, have had three meals for the money. "What purpose did he come for?" persisted the lawyer, adding: "You don't have people coming along and saying: 'I've come/" Annie replied: "He came for his meals." The first week Raklander paid 10/---to Annie's husband, but since then she could not say if he had paid — "Not me, he hasn't." His cheap meals only lasted three weeks, but he had a room for three months until — as Annie said, she "put htm out." Despite the diplomatic work of Lawyer Inder, who tried to trip Annie over her recollections of time and the length of the man's stay at her house, she was quite equal to him and would not be hustled or have her statements m any way mixed up. She remarked as this phase of things was terminated: "I chased him out. I smacked his face and hit him with the broom." Annie's eyes flashed as she remembered the retreat of the Norseman before her onslaught. Scorn flashed from her bright eyes as she added: "He charged me with being intimate with another man."

From this little martial episode she went an to tell how she had heard that Raklander was selling her records to an old woman for sixpence each outside the Town Hall. When he retreated under her Amazonian attack, he shouted, so she said: "I'm surprised at you carrying on with Bob!" At another stage of her evidence Annie said: "He came back on New Year's Eve to apologise — but he didn't, he got thrashed." As to Raklander's allegations, she was not present when he made them, but they had been repeated to her by friends. The letter she wrote him m May of this year was prompted by sympathy for Miss Hume. "Miss Hume was the first to tell me of the things he was saying. He went with her till February of this year." Apparently there had been no trouble until May, but from then on, said Annie: "He has run for his life every time he has seen me." The affair of the heart with Miss Hume kept going until February. "Then he started with Miss Wiggins." Raklander's nationality, Annie thought, was Austrian or German. "I told him my husband went to the war to shoot creatures like him." Her sympathy with Miss Hume was aroused by the fact that she had no roof to her mouth and was looked upon as "a bit simple;". . Raklander had not treated her right. She had given him a wallet which cost 30/-. "What about this man, Bob?" asked Lawyer Inder. "He's a policeman m Sydney now," replied Annie. With this final answer she was permitted to leave the box, and as she seated herself beside counsel she mopped her eyes for some minutes, though while she had held the fort against the opnosinsr lawyer she had

kept her end up with distinction. There followed m quick succession into the box, Dora Bergman, who rattled out m great style all that she had heard about Annie from Raklander —which was far from nice. He had told Dora that he had taken Annie out and could do what he liked with her; also that he had given her money. Magistrate Page had to ask the voluble lady to steady the pace, as he could not keep up with her. To Lawyer Inder, witness replied that she knew it could not be true, but he "tried to make her believe it," and had asked her not to tell Mrs. Ottoway that she knew him. Raklander even went so far, she said, as to ask her to come to court to say that she had seen the plaintiff drunk m White Street. •When she was at her gate, Millesa Miller stated m evidence Raklander had come up to her, asking if she knew him. He had told her some things about Annie. Millesa was not charmed with him and said she did not want to know him; he had accused her of being a woman of small mind. "I said I might have a small mind, but it was not a bad mind," she added. Before he left the lady at the gate he had said: "I carried on with her

for months and paid her well." He also told her that Annie was carrying on with a man named Fletcher. Sarah Wiggins did not know of her daughter being engaged to Raklander; he had given her no ring. To this witness, too, the verbose foreigner had told several unpleasant things concerning plaintiff; among others, that a policeman had surprised them m a park and that he had bribed the policeman. According to Ernest Ottoway, Raklander had quite a lot of meals at their house and had borrowed their records and never returned them. Miss Hume wanted her ring back and the money she had lent him. "I asked him what he had been saying about my wife and he said he'd never said a word — so I thrashed him," which seemed to put the whole matter m a nutshell so far as Ernest was concerned. Direct Action "He made it so hot when at my place," stated Mrs. Mabel Russell, who knew both parties, "that I put him out. He was insulting my daughter and bringing drink into the house. He was very friendly with two women there and they had to leave. Counsel: He was staying there? , — Oh, no, he wasn't! Who put him out? — The police. . Raklander, from the box, announced that he had been naturalized m 1911 and had been born m Sweden. Most of his replies were a denial of the allegations. "I never discussed Mrs. Ottoway." Magistrate Page: "It's all been concocted? — Yes. And Mrs. Millerls evidence, too? — Yes. Kaklander said the only thing he had remarked to Mrs. Miller about Mrs. Ottoway was that he had been very good to her. With some hesitation and delay he repeated: "So far as he remembered"; "to his knowledge"; "from memory," he had said nothing else. The result of the letter from Annie to Mrs. Wiggins had been that his engagement to Miss Wiggins had been broken off, though he had the day fixed and the license taken out. Lawyer Inder asked the man m the box, who was not displaying any very obvious pleasure at being there, some questions concerning Annie Ottoway. As to how often he had been out with her, he could not say, but she used to meet him near the Town Hall. From Memory Counsel: Why did you fall out? — Over Bob Fletcher. I said three was ' too many and I'd pull out. From the bevy of ladies at the back of the court there was an audible chorus of "Ohs"! All the witnesses had come to give false testimony, according to Raklander. Ottoway had never given him a hiding; he had "made a hit at him and missed." He did not owe Miss Hume £6 and he was not m possession of her ring; She owed him money. He had never had the Ottoways' records. In giving his decision, Magistrate Page remarked: "It is quite clear that the words said to have been spoken by Raklander are slanderous and actionable. "Several ladies have come to court and sworn that the statements have been' made; there is an onus on Raklander to establish his statements." His worship found for Annie Ottoway on her claim for slander. She was awarded £25 damages and ; Raklander £5, which would leave a balance m favor of Mrs. Ottoway of £20. Raklander would also have to pay Annie's legal expenses.