EVEN THE MAILMAN STOPPED TO LOOK

NZ Truth, Issue 1193, 11 October 1928, Page 3

EVEN THE MAILMAN STOPPED TO LOOK

OF course, it all depends upon what hour of day people decide to stage their domestic tiffs. Samuel and Mabel May Bunting and Hilda Scoles like theirs, it seems, immediately after breakfast. x , __„ That is how Postman Arthur Wilson, whoso "walk" takes him around Glasgow Street about 8.30 a.m., came to be one of the chief witnesses m the Dunedin Police Court on Friday last, when the aforementioned trio pleaded not guilty to charges of disorderly behavior. „ By all accounts, Glasgow Street on the morningr of September 10 was the scene of a fierce family fracas. In fact, a few more of its kind, and Dunedin will soon be able to snap its fingers at anyone mentioning Billingsgate for a back -yard battle. But the Bunting— Scoles stoush was evidently too much of the guerilla type of warfare to confine itself to a back-yard. From house to highway the battle raged. At one part of the business Samuel found himself deposited this-side-up-without-care m a bath with his sister, Hilda Scoles, and another sister, Mrs,~Elizabeth Johansan— he alleged In court— on top of him. . . Lawyer Alf. Hanlon held the legal towel for the Buntings, with Lawyer Claude White seconding Mrs. Scoles, when each of ' the two parties endeavored to evade a conviction by ascribing the other as the aggressor. Magistrate Bundle counted the rounds and finally declared it a draw by oonvioting the lot of them. . Postman Wilson, was the first witness haled to the box by Seniorsergeant Quartermain. He was, he said, on Mb round at about 8.30 on the morning of September 19, and as he entered Glasgow Street he heard "ah awful argument." On approaching closer to the rumpus he saw "two ladies m the road pulling each other's hair." All the neighbors were at their respective gates getting an eye-full, and witness heajd some bad language, though he could not "guarantee" it to j thescourt. "The ladies were having a gtftjrfrUJßLJ

BUNTINGS' BILLINGSGATE "Ladies" Had Stand-up Fight On Dunedin Highway (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin Representative.) It's a dashed hatd thing notO-O'da^s to have your family row without some outsider getting a box-seat. Neighbors, of course, don't count — the hole m the fence or the bathroom window will always provide them with a season ticket. But if the butcher, the ba^er, or the vacuum-cleaner agent isn't somewhere around just when you're busy with a bit of rough-and-tumble rally of relations, it's the postmanl »•.•'_-'

Mabel assured the bench that she was not to blame. She heard her husband arguing with Hilda about money affairs, and then witness chipped m with: "If you paid all you owe to mother she'd be able to retire." Hilda had then grabbed witness by the shingles and propelled her across the road. To Lawyer White, -Mabel volunteered a bit mpre information regarding the exchanges of compliments between her Sam. and sister Hilda. The latter had hurled at Samuel, when he went to separate the two women: "You gb back to your mother at Cargill Eoad — you're Mra. Smith's Samuel Bunting's version of the upheaval followed that of his wife. If Hilda had received &• blow m the face, it was not deliberately dealt out by witness. He had heard Mrs. Scoles* remarks about his mother and that had annoyed him. As for the first round Fn Mrs. Johansan's bathroom, witness had been belted over the head with an enamelled basin, and he assured the court that .Hilda was "quit© • capable of looking after herself." Lawyer White: Tell me your position when Davis came into Mrs. Johansan's?— l was lying m the bath, back first, with two women on top of me! Sam. refused to admit that he had been standing at his gateway m ambush for .Hilda as she came along, but he got a bit hot and excited about his alleged refusal to make a statement to the constable. Elizabeth Johansan supported Hilda's side of the proceedings, and the man Davis stepped up on behalf of the Buntings. But Magistrate Bundle could see no reason why the whole trio should not be convicted, and entered records accordingly, with 40/- against Sam. 'a name and 20/- for each of. the female antagonists.

fight," he continued, "and I told Bunting to separate them, but he went up and hit Mrs.- Scoles m the face with his fist, and told me to mind my own business. I told him it was not a very manly thing to do." • In ■ cross-examining, Lawyer Hanlon gave witness little time to breathe, but the postman was quite sure he was telling the truth about Bunting having sloshed his sister, Hilda Scoles. ... "Didn't you, as you went Into all the houses, tell the people to 'come and have a look'?" counsel asked. "That's not true," answered he of the letter-round; Lawyer White rose to make sure that witness was not shaken by his colleague's inte'rrdgation, and tho post--man obliged the court by repeating his. description of the Bunting blow Which had drawn blood from Hilda's, face. A constable 'who had been assigned the duty of inquiring into the disturbance, stated that he interviewed the three parties soon after the affray and the two women had rendered 1 statements, which were read to the court. Bunting, said the ' constable, had refused to make a statement. ' ■ ... Hilda Scoles, of 15 Richardson Street, then faced the ■ barrier to cor-

roborate the coptenta of her statement to the police officer, which attributed the cause of the whole trouble to her sister-in-law's reluctance to .part up. with some borrowed butter-plates which were m Bunting's house, and for which witness was responsible. Bunting, a brother of witness, had become abusive arid later followed her Into the house of Mrs. Johansan, another, sister. ' There, Hilda vowed, Bunting started to cut up rough, and it was only by the Intervention of a man named William Davis, that Sam. desisted. As witness was making her way along, the road to her work, both the Buntings were handy to their, gate. As -witness* passed their dwelling, Mabel made a break to come into a slßterly-ln-law embrace with as rriuoh of Hilda's locks as the prevailing mode of hair-dress permitted. Mabel Bunting's story from the witness - box- was somewhat different. She maintained that she was m bed when Hilda called at her dwelling at 34 Glasgow Street. Witness heard Hilda say;. "She's grot , the plates all right;, the lazy -, "''-she's grot' them planted." Regarding the scuffle .. m the rbafl,!