DISCHARGE of SERGT KIDD.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1063, 20 April 1882, Page 3

DISCHARGE of SERGT KIDD.

A STRANGE STORY ABOUT THE WAIPAWA Election. (From the Auckland Evening Star. Yesterday afternoon Sergeant Kidd, ■a highly popular member of the Auckland police force, received notice that hie services were dispensed with, no reason for this step being assigned by the Commissioner, or by the Hon. Mr Bryce, who signed the order of discharge. Kidd was transferred to A nekland about three months ago, but finding that the street duty hurt his feet, he applied for a removal to Coromandel ■or some other country district. The notice of dismissal was the unexpected •answer to this application. The real cause of the dismissal has, however, come to our ears, and we ' think that when our readers have perused tire following story, they will 'conclude, with ns, that it discloses a discreditable state of things. Kidd, prior to his removal to this city, was stationed at Waipawa, a township in the Hawkes’ Bay Provincial District. At the same time there was stationed at Napier a certain Sergeant McMahon, who filled the position of clerk to Inspector Scully. The two men were on terms of the greatest intimacy —indeed a sort of Damon and Pythias attachment seems to have existed between them. At the last general election Mr Ormond and Mr Smith contested the Waipawa seat. Some little time before the polling day Kidd received a letter requesting him to use his influence with Smith, which was known to be great, to withdraw from the contest. Sergeant Kidd indignantly declined to do anything so inconsistent with his position as a member of the police force. Although he was conscientious, the Ormond party were not, and they used the public officials in support of Ormond’s candidature with unsparing band. Sergeant McMahon himself was on the day of the election sent to Woodville, a distance of 70 or 80 miles, as sub-returning officer, but really to influence the large vote in that locality in favor of the run-owners’ candidate, ft is a matter of history that Smith Was elected, and from that time the spite of the defeated party ■was concentrated on Sergeant Kidd, who was supposed, perhaps with some ■colour of truth, to have been the real cause of Air Smith’s return. Very shortly after the election Kidd received a memo, from Inspector Scully to the effect that the Native Department had requested his removal, and that he was to leave the district on a certain day. The series of removals that were entailed by the gratification of this petty piece of spite could not have cost tire Government less than £lOO, probably a considerable sum more. TVell, Kidd came to Auckland, and had not been here more than a few ■days before he had the misfortune to read an article in one of the local Papers upon the gross mismanagement Police Department. The case used constables was so and the deductions drawn Kidd sent a copy to to his Napier McMahon, for y i’ 1 papers. The up-hot missal. Comment on stated is needless. -O'l sergeant’s pa~t reone. He is a brother >rne Kidd, fiag-lieti-Lyons, who was attempting to from the Ru.-sian lying between tire Englines after the memoof tiie (Quarries during Sergeant Kidd was i.fficer during the

Waikato War, and in 1867 was specially commissioned by Col. Haultain, the then Defence Minister, to raise a corps of volunteers fur active service in the Rotorua district. He joined the police in 1875, and during his career in the force he has been in charge of Tauralrga and Gisborne. The residents of the former place petitioned strongly against his removal, and when he left Gisborne the appreciation of his services by the public was testified by a presentation of silver plate. On Kidd’s departure from Auckland forTauranga, Inspector Broham, who is acknowledged to be one of the best police officers in the Colony wrote to the effect that it would be his (Kidd’s) own fault if he did not obtain a commission in the force, or a Resident Magistracy. We understand that Sergeant Kiddintends to retition Parliament for an inquiry into the circumstances attending the dismissal, and so our readers may expect to hear more about this matter.

The following appeared in the Auckland Herald on the same subject:— “In connection with a Ipava graph in onr issue of yesterday, relative 1o Sergeant Kidd, we are informed that the sergeant’s discharge from the police force was caused by the following circumstances :— The Commissioner of Constabulary discovered that Sergeant Kidd had forwarded to Napier—with an express request for its republication in the Napier newspapers —an adverse article on the manageTnent of the police departnent, which appeared a short time since in the Auckland Free Press, and contained certain gross misstatements respecting police matters. This act of disaffec tion and insubordination being clearly traced to Sergeant Kidd, the head of the department, in view of the bad example thus set to constables by a sergeant, could not overlook so serious an offence against the discipline of the force, and, in consequence, determined to dispense with Sergeant Kidd’s services.