Wife’s Dancing Partner

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 130, 23 August 1927, Page 9

Wife’s Dancing Partner

Husband Arrested Following Affray With a Knife at Fonsonby

VICTIM IN HOSPITAL

A MAN with blood streaming from a wound in his neck, and another with a battered, bleeding- face, were found early last evening- at 72 Wanganui Avenue, Ponsonby, when neighbours rushed to the house in response to a woman’s cries for assistance.

When the neighbours and police officers arrived, a fierce quarrel had ended, but the stabbed man, Alexander Percy Cuthbert Bentley, is now in the Auckland Hospital with a knife wound in his neck, and the doctors are uncertain what complications may set in.

nPHE other man, Herbert Marshall Brooks, aged 47, was charged at the Police Court this morning with wounding Bentley. Tall and well-built, his face gave evidence of the savagery of the fight. He had many abrasions —one eye blackened and swollen, one cheek livid and puffed, and he still mopped blood from cuts as he stood in the dock. Chief-Detective Ward applied for a remand until August 29. Mr. Elwarth, who appeared for Brooks, asked for bail. , CAUSE OF THE FIGHT In opposing this application the chief detective said that Mrs. Brooks and Bentley were partners in a dancing studio. Last night when Bentley

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS'

CHILDREN IN “HEATHENISH IGNORANCE” MR. ISITT AND DR. CLEARY “While I say again that I fully recognise the rights of Roman Catholics to stand by their convictions I have an equal right to tell Protestants that they will not only be weak but wicked if they allow our Protestant children to be kept for another half-century in heathenish ignorance of God and the Bible, because the Roman Catholics persist in demands tfiat we are convinced Parliament will never grant!” THE HON. L. M. ISITT, M.L.C., in a letter from Wellington to THE SUN, replies to the attack made by Dr. Cleary, Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland, on Mr. Isitt’s pamphlet on the Bible in Schools question. Mr. Isitt says he has endeavoured to reply to the Bishop without sectarian bitterness, while plainly stating his case. In the whole of the controversy he had never “uttered a bitter word” against the Roman Catholic Church. “And I am determined that whatever irritation and injustice I may be subjected to, I will not be betrayed into answering in kind,” he declares. Last session Mr. Isitt’s Bill was defeated in the Upper House by two votes because four of its supporters were unavoidably absent, and its opponents refused pairs. “Now, had the three Catholic members of the Council voted for the Bill instead of against it we should have carried the Bill by a majority of four, despite our absent four men,” says Mr. Isitt. “I am not disputing the right of Catholics to vote according to their convictions; I simply say that those convictions prevent the ending of the secular system. Can the Bishop deny that fact? “•Bishop Cleary asked: ‘Plow can fourteen per cent, of a community defeat the will of a large majority of the citizens?’ “Is he really so unversed in political procedure as to ask that question? Let me enlighten him further. “Last session a member came to me,” continues Mr. Isitt, “and said that T cannot support your Bill.’ ‘Why not?’ I inquired. ‘You know why not,’ he replied. ‘I have so many Roman Catholics in my constituency that if I do I am down and out.’ “Is Bishop Cleary really unaware of the fact that a solid vote of fourteen per cent, of the constituents often constitutes a balance of power that determines the result of the poll?” asks Mr. Isitt. THE BISHOP CONTRADICTED It is also pointed out by Mr. Isitt that a majority .of the Protestant clergymen and laity, as stated by Bishop Cleary, are not against the Bill. The Church of England, led by Archbishop Julius and four of its five bishops at its head, have officially declared in favoui* of it. The Presbyterian Assembly and the Methodist Conference were both for it. Other supporters are the Baptist, Congregational, Lutheran Churches, the Church of Christ, the Salvation Army and the Pentecostal League. Mr. Isitt adds: “Now this means that out of 1,224,600 estimated adherents of all the Christian Church in New Zealand, the adherents of the churches supporting the Bill number no fewer than 1,065,487, xvhile outside the Roman Catholic communion the adherents of all the remaining Christian Churches number only 21,338, and of these I believe at least half favour the Bill.”

called on Brooks and his wife, Brooks •had had drink and words ensued over his friendship with Mrs. Brooks. “In the fight that followed Brooks stabbed Bentley in the neck with a bread-knife, severing several arteries,” said the chief detective. COMPLICATIONS POSSIBLE “At present his condition is not serious,” said Mr. Ward, “but the

doctors are not yet certain what the injury might turn to.” “I want a short remand,” he *said, “in case it is necessary to take Bentley’s evidence at the hospital.” Brooks was remanded to appear on August 29, and the magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt, fixed bail at £IOO.