MAYOR ARRESTED

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1920, Page 4

MAYOR ARRESTED

WANGANUI SENSATION. . ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGk RETURNED SOLDIER WOUNDED By Toleerapli.—Press Association. Wanganui, Last Night. A mysterious affair occurred on Saturday afternoon. A young man named D'Arcy Cresswell, twenty-four, who belongs to Timaru, and who arrived in Wanganui on a visit a few days ago, was conversing for some time with Mr. C. E. Mackay, solicitor, at the latter's office. Subsequently a chair was thrown through a window, and -shots weM heard. Cresswell was taken to the hospital with a bullet in his breast, and Mackay was later on brought before justices and remanded till Monday on a charge ot attempted murder. Cresswell is making satisfactory progress. Mackay entertained Cresswell an 4 a friend at dinner at a local hotel on Tuesday evening. As the accused is the Mayor of thai town the incident has caused a sensa* tion. FULLER DETAILS. THE POLICE OPPOSE BAIL. (By Wire—Special to News.) Wanganui, Last Night. A painful sensation was caused in Wanganui on Saturday afternoon, when it became known that a returned soldier, Walter D'Arcy Cresswell, aged Kl years, had been admitted to the hospital suffering from a bullet wound in the right breast, and that the Mayor (Mr. Mackay) was implicated in the affair. The first indication of anything of an untoward nature came shortly before one o'clock in the afternoon, when people in the vicinity of Mr. Mackay's office, which is upstairs in a building in Ridgway Street, were startled by a sound of a commotion. Then a window was shattered, and a chair came flying out on to. the roadway. There was a sharp report of a revolver shot—some people say the sounds of more than one were heard—and then a cry for help. A constable immediately made investigations, and found Cresswell on the staircase, his condition being such that he had to be removed to the hospital. Mackay was taken into custody, and Inter in the afternoon a charge of attempted murder was preferred against him. An application for bail was made, but Inspector Hendry sa<id that in vipw of the nature of the charge he would have to oppose the application. Mackay was accordingly remanded to appear before the Magistrate this morning.

THE MAYOR AND E.S.A. A RECENT DISAGREEMENT* The following is taken from Saturday's Wanganui Chronicle:— ' We have received from the Mayor a communication in which he complains that our published report of the proeeedings of the annual meeting of the Returned Soldiers' Association contained an insinuation that he had been guilty of "contemptible" and "despicable" behaviour. This insinuation, he says, is quite unwarranted by the facts and goes, far beyond the bounds of fair criticism. Apparently Mr- Mackay has either mis. read our report or inadvertently confused it, with some other report of the proceedings. In this connection it is significant that the word "contemptible" does not occur in our report at all. The other words complained of were used Mr. Woods, thon President of the U.S.A., in the course of his'teferenee to the series of resolutions or decisions of the Borough Council relative to the disagreement between the Mayor and the R.S.A., which resolutions or decisions, as published in the Mavor's letter, Mr. Woods evidently understood dad never been endorsed by the Council. Mr. Woods added that "if 'that were so" then "it was a despicable act and worthy of contempt." Clearly, then, the word's of which the Mayor complains can have no defamatory significance so far as the Mayor is concerned unless the act against which Mr. Woods protested was actually committed by the Mayor. In otlTer words, as our report makes it perfectly clear, if the resolutions or decisions of the Council, and were submitted to. endorsed and published with the authority and approval of the Council, then the words used by Mr. Woods can have no meaning so far as the Mayor If, on the other hand, the ex-President of the R.S.A. had been rightly informed, and the resolutions or decisions as published In the Mayor's letter were not submitted to and endorsed by the Council, then the fact of their publication entitles the Mayor Jo criticism and it becomes a question for discussion as to whether or not Mr. Woods' designation of an act likely to prejudice himself and his fellow officers of the RSA. in the estimation of the public practically on the eve of the visit of the Prince of Wales, was in the circumstances fair and justifiable. It seems to us that it is, as Mr. Woods said, a matter for the Borough Council to decide, and that in fairness to the Mayor the Council should take the earli- 1 est opportunity of letting the publje know as to whethe'r or not the ex-Presi-dent of the R.S.A. had been rightly formedMr C. E. Mackay is well-known in Taranaki, being a son of the late Mr. Joseph Mackay, at one time headmaster of Wellington Oollege, and afterwards a settler in the Midhlrst district. Mr. Mackay's mother at present residej in New Plymouth, as also do her two daughters and another son.