FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 205, 18 November 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” THE CONSISTENT KNIGHT None can say that Sir Robert Stout is not consistent. In his S4th year the grand old man is putting up a fight for the establishment of district councils, which, he contends, will do away -with the waste inseparable from the functioning of multitudinous overlapping local bodies. Fifty-three years ago—in 1874 —that young and strenuous politician, Robert Stout, destined to be in turn Premier and Chief Justice —and on several occasions Administrator of New Zealand during the absence of the King’s representative —was stubbornly resisting the abolition of the Provincial Councils! Not all the changes of over half a century have changed the mind of this consistent knight on at least one important question of politics. SELF HELP How admirable is the spirit of selfhelp! Flooded residents of the Great South Road, in the neighbourhood of Momona Road, realising that their local governing body is not exactly bursting with wealth, have guaranteed to find £lls between them toward the cost of drainage. The One Tree Hill Road Board has promptly instructed its engineer to prepare plans for drainage, and the chairman, Mr. R, G. Clark, has eulogised the spirit that moved the ratepayers to do something for themselves —-especially as the nuisance has existed for twenty years. The example set by these ratepayers can be commended to others in the board’s district, and more particularly to those who are too tired to take their lawnmowers outside to the strips of grass which border the road outside their homes, whilst similar patches are kept trim and green by their neighbours, to the great improvement of the street. • * • THE SLATER CASE The release from prison, after having served 18 years of a life sentence, of Oscar Slater, who was convicted by the majority verdict of an Edinburgh jury on a charge of murder, recalls a memorable case. An old woman was murdered, and a brooch belonging to her stolen. Witnesses identified Slater as the “pleasant stranger” who was seen to leave the flat at the time of the murder, and he was proved to have pawned a brooch. Slater was sentenced to death, and would have been hanged but that some influential people had grave doubts about his guilt and presented a petition bearing 20,000 signatures for his reprieve. The extraordinary thing about it is that it was proved that the brooch pawned by Slater was not identical with that stolen from the murdered woman, but belonged to Andrea Antoine, with whom Slater was living. Further than that, the witnesses were positive that "the pleasant stranger” they saw was cleanshaved; yet when Slater was arrested, only a few days later, he wore a heavy moustache —which could not have been grown in so short a time. In view of these facts, the man’s conviction appears to have been a very peculiar piece of justice, and it causes a shudder to think how near he went to being hanged on such evidence.

r'r r’- lit •Ij’- b'£ -Jr b'r. Ir. ~'r r~r -H :|- MEDICINE MEASURE Those who aver that they only “take a drop” occasionally for medicinal purposes may certainly be backed to this extent, that they only get medicinal doses. In a case heard at a country police court, it was shown that when a customer poured whisky into a glass up to the measure line, he actually received only one tablespoonful of the spirit, which led the learned magistrate to remark that it was “very unfortunate.” It seems to be an extremely small dispensation for ninepence; yet you would discover a most displeased frown on the forehead of the bar attendant if you went “over the measure” in search of value. It would not be so bad if the man who pays ninepence for a “nip” could invariably be certain that he was- getting quality at least, if not quantity. But in some hotels he doesn’t even get that, and, as has been urged in this column before, more frequent sampling of spirits by authorised inspectors is required in the ptiblic interest—and in the interest of the publicans who do supply liquor of the strength and quality demanded.