SMALL BOY DUCKED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 839, 6 December 1929, Page 1

SMALL BOY DUCKED

PUNISHMENT MADE TO FIT THE CRIME CRUELTY TO KITTEN Seeing two small boys plunging a kitten into a storm-water drain anrl hauling it out by the tail only to repeat the performance, a sailor from H.M.S. Dunedin intervened and mads the punishment fit the crime by ducking one of the young tormentors. This morning the sailor, Archibald Larkin, was cnarged at the Police Court with assault. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., dismissed the charge, remarking that what the sailor had done was quite right. Mr. Armstead appeared for defendant and apologised for the mans absence. He was a seaman on H.M.S. Dunedin and notice of leave to attend the court had reached him too late to permit of his appearance this morning. Counsel was of the opinion that the case should never have been brought before the court. Larkin had been on the verandah of his home at Devonport. He had seen two small boys plunging a kitten in o a storm-water drain and hauling it out by the tail again. He had called out to them, but they took no notice, so he went over to them. One child ran home, but Larkin caught the other and picked him up. He held him over the drain and 3aid: "How would you like to be dipped in there?” The boy’s arm and shoulder had fallen into the water. Sub-Inspector McCarthy gave the boy’s age as only four years. When he got home he had been covered with slime and mud. Larkin had put him into the water head first. Ellen Scott, mother of the boy named in the charge, said that ho had come in covered with mud aid she had had to bath him. ■ “The seaman acted quite rightl .” i commented the magistrate, dismieein* the case.