The Observer.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 71, 21 January 1882, Page 290

The Observer.

I Saturday, January 21st, 1882.

Now that the responsibility of delaying the English mail has been saddled on to the right shoulders, it is to be hoped that prompt steps will be .taken to prevent the recurrence of such a serious inconvenience. Assuredly the Harbour Board will come in for much public obloquy if a similar mistake occurs again. Mr Compton and his collaborateurs are now well aware that it rests with them to give permission for the erection of a proper fumigation chamber, and we really cannot see why the work should be delayed for a single hour. In three weeks another mail steamer will arrive from 'Frisco, and by that * time all necessary arrangements ought to be com- * plete.

» A very extraordinary bank case, in which some gentlemen well known m Auckland are concerned, was tried at Napier not many weeks ago. The plaintiff is Mr Sutherland, a runholder at Hawke's Bay, and the action was brought against the Bank of New Zealand to recover £200 commission paid under alleged coercion. The story of the affair is as follows : — Mr Sutherland, the possessor of a valuable run at Mohaka, was a client of the Bank's for several years, and owed a considerable overdraft. In July, 1879, the manager (Mr Thomas Balfour) called upon Sutherland, and informed him that the Inspector had been his rounds and that the overdraft would have to be paid at once. Mr Sutherland said, "All right ; he would sell the Mohaka property to meet the demand," and in order to show his hona fides he put it in the hands of Mr Miller, auctioneer, fixing the price at £3200, £200 o£ which was intended to cover all expenses and commissions. Some time afterwards Sutherland met Mr Balfour, who asked him if he had sold the place. Sutherland said he had not, but that Mr Miller was negotiating with a possible purchaser. Mr Balfour replied that the overdraft would have to be paid immediately, saying, "We have a purchaser who will buy." Sutherland replied, " Send him over to Miller." Balfour then said that the purchaser would not deal with Miller ; that he would only deal with them, and they (the Bank) would have to get the commission. Sutherland then said he could not pay two commissions. Mr Miller would want his commission if the place were sold, but if the auctioneer would compromise he (Sutherland) would pay the (.'.L.l'erence to Mr Balfour, as it did not matter to him who got the commission. Mr Balfour said he did not see why Mr Miller should get the commission; saying, " If we (mean? ing the Bank) sell it we have a right to get it ;" and added that the purchaser would buy another property if he did not sell quickly, . and if that took place the Bank would come,, down immediately on him for tlH' over--''* ; draft. £200 was named as the commission — £50 -± more than the highest commission agent would *■ , charge. The threat Balfoux put forth abouf the,; , overdraft appears to have fS^AenedTSutheriandjfi :for he fSfej^»^L^jY^i^d i|»thJn,^urriSd oufcjf,.

Mr Thomas Balfonr's hrother, Mr William Balfour. No money passed. Mr William Balfour gave bills for the £3200, and Mr Sutherland, under pressure, paid Thomas Balfour — or, as he thought, the Bank — the £200 commission. Subsequently Sutherland reflected over the affair, and the result of his reflections was that he brought an action against the Bank* to recover the £200, as well as a sum of £78 11s, charged him for discounting William Balfour'' s bills.

Now, what think you was the Bank's defence ? Why, that the affair was a private transaction, and that the commission went into the pockets of Thomas Balfour, and not into the Bank's coffers. So solemnly was this sworn to by Balfour, that the case resulted in a nonsuit, the jury finding ♦ " that the plaintiff thought he was paying the £200 commission to the Bank through their manager, but the evidence proved that the manager was acting in his private capacity." Now, there are only two conclusions to be derived from this affair. Either Balfour was ordered by the Bank to swear that the transaction was a private one, in order to prevent them seeming to be mixed up in such a Shylock-like business, or else the transaction really was a private, one. In the latter case, we can scarcely imagine Mr Murdoch looking over the affair. The Bank of New Zealand pretends to be extraordinarily particular about its employes doing little jobs of their own, and if a scandalous job like this is overlooked the public will indeed open its eyes pretty wide.

A highly religious tradesman, who lives in S street, has just completed a sale in horseflesh which would do credit to a professional coper of the deepest dye. The animal is lame, and under no possible circumstances will ever be fit for any work again. This being so, Mr Timkins (the tradesman aforesaid) turned him out to grass, and waited for a favourable opportunity to get rid of the brute. By-and-by the time came. Gk>ingonc, of Queen-street, wanted a horse, and, hearing Mr Read-tho-Grospel Timkins had one for sale, he went up to see it. The animal looked prime ; its skin was glossy, and its condition good i in fact, the only thing the most fastidious critic could urge was that the beast seemed to be a little tender in the feet. This, however, Timkins explained by saying that the horse had been running on stony land, and he added the animal would soon be all right when put into work. Alas for Goingone! Believing in our religious friend, he bought the animal without a guarantee, and when the truth came out nothing could be done. The horse, course, is dead lame, and unfit for work of any kind, and Q-oingone can only swear never again to believe in a pious folk.

A burglary of a rather remarkable kind took place on Saturday afternoon last, which, for potent reasons has not and never will be reported to the police. We heard about the affair accidentally, and at first could hardly credit the story. It has, however, since been confirmed on undoubted authority, and though carefully hushed up, is pretty well known in certain quarters. Ralph Seaton (we give him that name becaxise it is as little like his own as j>ossible) is employed as book-keeper in a relatives office, and till lately gave great satisfaction. A few months ago, however, he fell over head and ears in love with a fast shop girl, and ever since has dangled about at her heels, giving her handsome presents of jewellery he could in no wise afford, and altogether making an atrocious fool of himself. On Saturday last Ralph's relative (old X.) after locking the cash-box and placing it in the safe, fastened up some letters and set off home. He had, however, only proceeded about half-way when he clapped his hand on to his trouser pocket, and, missing his keys, remembered he had left them on the office table. At first he thought—- " Oh, Ralph will bring them home." and half determined to continue his walk, but something urged the old fellow to return ; so, f eeling cross and angry, he slowly retraced his steps. Arrived at the shop or office (we wont say which) K. noticed the front was shut up, and therefore proceeded to the back, opening the door quietly with a latch key, of which it appears he carries two. The sight that met his gaze was astounding. At the counter, with the cash-box open before him, stood his unhappy young relative, and from his pockets the lad by-and-bye pulled out two £5 notes. Ralph explained desperately he had meant for several days to leave Auckland, he felt so miserable and seeing his relatives keys had suggested to him a means of borrowing cash. His sweetheart he said was going to marry Blank, the soft goods counter-jumper ; and he couldn't — indeed wouldn't stay to witness their wedded bliss. Luckily K. is a kindly man, and thought he saw Ralph had not intended to commit any felony. Nevertheless, he spoke to the boy very sternly, showed him he could Bend him to gaol if he chose, and eventually gave him the two notes and sent him away to by the first steamer.

The business of a pawnbroker is, from its very nature, selfish and grasping. The pawnbroker's principal profits are derived from the unthrifty, the needy, and the vicious. It is no part of his trade to be over-scrupulous rs to how the property which is hypothecated has been acquired, unless the borrower is a notorious thief, whose movements are under police surveillance, and whose transactions are likely to give trouble. Giving pawnbrokers full credit for some degree of readiness to assist the police in their inquiries after stolen property, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the existence of pawnshops under the system in force in this Colony provides ready facilities for the disposal of goods that have been, dishonestly acquired. A recent proof of this has come under our observation in certain facts that have been communicated to us. A woman, who :< was engaged as a domestic servant in a well-to-do family, and who was treated with the utmost confidence, had succeeded in pawning various valuable articles belonging to her employer without exciting their suspicions. Her plan appears to have been to abstract and pawn these goods at ■' intervals ; and when the series of thefts were discovered, the employers preferred to suffer the Josa rather than incur the publicity and trouble

of a prosecution. Jfrom time to time the woman had pawned articles of the value of upwards of £12, on which, as shown by the pawn-tickets, she had received trifling loans, amounting in the aggregate to only 16s. The articles hypothecated were not such as would be in the possession of a person in her position ; but the " pawnbroker appears to have asked no questions, if he ever entertained any doubts as to how the goods had been acquired. It is high time that the business of pawnbroking in New Zealand was brought under a legislative review, and that a system analagous to that which is in operation in Paris and other Continental cities were introduced, so as to prevent extortion and facilities for the disposal of stolen property.

Now that the trial of Plummer is concluded, and any comment on the case cannot prejudice the prisoner or any of the parties concerned, there can be no harm in narrating the true story of the circumstances which led to the capture of the notorious burglar. Of course, the principal credit belongs to Sergeant Pardy, whose energy, promptitude, and skill in effecting Plummer's arrest, and in dovetailing together the nraltifarious details of evidence for the prosecution, -were beyond all praise, and render him deserving of some substantial reward and promotion at the hands of the Government. If the esprit de corps of the force is to be maintained, the Government cannot afford to allow such services as those which have been rendered by Mr Pardy to pass without some signal and adequate recognition. For weeks prior to Plummer's arrest the city and suburbs had been thrown into a state of panic, the newspapers teemed with sensational accounts of burglai*ies in evei*y quarter, and peaceful families were deprived of their rest. The arrest of Plummer restored confidence, and terminated the panic. It is asserted in some quarters that Detective Jeffrey knew of the whereabouts of Plummer, had suspected him of being concerned in the burglaries, and had him under surveillance for some weeks prior to the arrest, and that at the time the detective was ordered away to the country on other important business he had limed tho twig with the object of trapping his bird. Whether this statement is in accordance with fact we are unable to ascertain ; but we have heard from a thoroughly reliable source the precise circumstances that put Mr Pardy on the scent, and were the immediate prelude to Plummer's apprehension .

It will be remembered that at the time when the burglary panic was at its height Mr Superintendent Thomson was a patient at the hospital, undergoing treatment for a broken leg. He was, we hear, much annoyed at the inability of the police to obtain a clue to the perpetrators of the robberies, and decided on taking some extraordinary measures to allay the public anxiety. The detectives were reinforced by eight constables in plain clothes, who maintained a vigilant watch in various parts of the city and suburbs, thus considerably weakening the jjrotection afforded to the town, and increasing the arduous duties of the men on the regular " beats." Among the rest, Constable Bernard was instructed to make a house-to-house inspection in Ponsonby, ostensibly with the view of checking the electoral roll, but more particularly to report as to any suspicious circumstances in the habits of the residents. One day Constable Bernard called at the house inhabited by Bailey, who was not at home. Making inquiries of the neighbours, the policeman was presently surrounded by a bevy of ladies, who, with that taste for gossip which is one of the weaknesses of the sex, began to volunteer some important information, to all of which the astute Bernard listened with an air that was childlike and bland, while his ears and eyes were wide open. The women, who sometimes spoke all at once, and interjected interesting little details of Bailey's habits, which he was not slow to piece together, said that Bailey was a gentleman living on his means. For some mysterious reason, which was a puzzle even to the most inquisitive of his neighbours, Mr Bailey shunned the daylight, slept all the day like a " possum" or an owl, and indulged in exercise at night. He was supposed to suffer from an affection of the eyes, or something of that sort. The constable, with an innocent air of nonchalance, inquired whether Mr Bailey followed any particular occupation, doubtless regarding a gentleman of independent means with such eccentric habits as a kind of rara avis in terra. He was told that Mr Bailey had no occupation, beyond occasionally cultivating a small garden. Did the ladies know who was the landlord of the house ? Oh, yes ! Mr Williams, tailor, of Victoria-street.

Musing much on the somewhat dark ways of Mr Bailey, Constable Bernard took occasion, on his way to the police station, to call on Mr Williams and enter into a quiet friendly chat on the weather and the crops, the state of trade, and sundry other little matters which it is needless to particularise, and finally carrying away a specimen of Mr Bailey's handwriting, in the shape of a letter from him to " The People's Tailor," opening up negotiations for the purchase of the hoiise in which Bailey resided. On seeing the letter, and hearing the constable's statement, Mr Pardy's countenance assumed that severely judicial expression with which the habitues of the Police Court are so familiar. He at once recognised the handAvriting, and remembered the name Bailey as one of Plummer's favourite aliases, and he had no doubt that the mysterious gentleman was no other than the redoubtable New Zealand Jack Shepherd. A strict watch was maintained over the house in the hope of catching the burglar red-handed, but none of the "swag" was ever brought home. "We understand, however, that the detectives have obtained a clue to its destination, and have taken measures to intercept it. The rest our readers know. Sergeant Pardy found his clues complete, and judged the' moment was ripe for Plummer's arrest, which was effected without difficulty. Constable Bernard has been handsomely rewarded from the police reward fund, and we trust that Sergeant Pardy's services will also be suitably recognised as they deserve.

Inquiries have been rife dnring the week as to who was the eminent leather merchant, referred to by us as having changed his omnibus on economic grounds. Now, we object on principle to this morbid inquisitiveness. If a leather merchant, or any other wealthy person chooses to save a penny on a 'bus trip, besides getting a lift part of the road for nothing, why should people make rude and pointed remarks about it? Anyhow we decline to gratify morbid curiosity by mentioning the indivual's name. No amount of wheedling, or of pressure, or even of physical torture could compel us to divulge the identity of this very cute and clever person. However, we may observe casually that the baptismal Christian name was neither G-eorge nor Frederick.

The recent robbery of goods from the stores of Messrs. D. Nathan and Co. recalls to mind a similar occurrence in Auckland some years ago. A firm of auctioneers, who were in business in premises nearly opposite the Exchange Hotel, carried on a considerable trade in soft goods ; but when they struck the usual half-yearly balance, they discovered, to their astonishment, that their transactions showed a nett loss of upwards of £500. As they had apparently been making more or less of absolute profit on every sale, this result was quite inexplicable ; but a careful reaudit of the books exhibited the same figures. This produced a coolness between the members of the firm, leading to mutual suspicions of fraud, and ultimately a dissolution of the partnership. Some months later the auctioneer who continued the business was informed by a neighbour that one of the storemen had been detected in the act of removing bundles from the rooms under cover of darkness ; but though a strict watch was set, the supposed tbief was not caught. Tbe auctioneer ultimately sold his business, removed to the Waikato, and the affair of the mysterious balance-sheet had passed out of his mind, when it was revived by fin extraordinary disclosure made to him by one of his former storemen. This man had removed to the Thames, when he received one day an urgent message to go to the house of a man who had been in the same employment. He found the man on his death-bed. The' dying man said there was one matter that had weighed very heavily on his mind, and he wished to make a clean breast of it before he passed away. He then confessed that, at the instigation of a certain retail draper, he had from time to time abstracted goods from the store, sold them to him at a merely nominal price, and that they formed part of the stock-in-trade, which was afterwards retailed to the jmblie. Our informant, who is a man of unimpeachable veracity, says the draper who replenished his stock in this rascally way is now doing one of the largest retail businesses in Auckland.

Lawyers' letters are, by most people, considered extremely disagreeable missives, but in some persons they excite a terror and alarm perfectly ludicrous. An instance occurred the other day. A man had been living for a considerable time in a house and paying no rent for it. He said he did not know who the owner was, and as the landlord had not taken the trouble to come for the rent he, the tenant, was not going to hunt him up. In an evil hour one day he was boasting to a friend that he had paid no rent for three years. A third party happened to overhear the boast, and resolved to frighten him, if possible. This gentleman, Mr 8., knew that the tenant was somewhat ignorant, and he also knew that he could well afford to pay rent. Procuring a large formidable envelope and suitable ' paper, Mr B. indited a short epistle to the tenant, written in a pretty good imitation of a stiff legal hand and plentifully besprinkled with technical jawbreakers, demanding the instant payment of all back rent, and threatening immediate proceedings if the demand were not complied with. Appending a fictitious solicitor's name to the letter he posted it to the man in possession, and watched the result. The letter arrived at its destination at mid-day, and created unbounded consternation. Late that night the tenant quietly, but with great celerity cleared out from the house, and a few days after was relating in high glee to some of his friends how cleverly he had outwitted, the landlord !

The morning paper is fond of posing as a sort of jotirnalistic Admirable Cricliton in respect of its severe propriety and superior respectability of style. Occasionally it refers in a lofty tone of reproof and censure to those improper newspapers which admit anything into their columns not in accordance with its own supposed standard of good taste or decency. This being so, will anyone connected --with that high-toned paper be good enough to explain why the Herald, published in its Police Court news the other day a report of a certain case, which said report was, for low disgusting filthiness and pruriency, the very worst and most repulsive paragraph ever seen in any Colonial newspaper. Indeed, it might be averred with tolerable certainty that the lowest and most ultra-sensual Parisian or New York journals would not admit such an infamously indecent thing into their columns. This we state without any hesitation or fear of contradiction, and feel sure that public sentiment is entirely with us in the matter. It is not a pleasant subject to refer to, but no harm can be done, inasmuch as it has been very freely talked about. On the contrary, it may possibly prove a salutary caution to the proprietors and editors of the Herald, and cause them to exercise some little decent discretion in future.

The ex Native Minister — the jovial, genial, clever Johnny Sheehan has crossed the fatal line which seperates bachelordom from benedictism. While cordially -wishing him every conceivable amount of happiness and prosperity, perhaps it may be allowed us to observe that although the bride was Yowig — very young — she is now no longer Young but some other name. Therefore let the joyous bridegroom be counselled by his bride, and refrain in future from allowing designing humbugs to impose on his good nature by using his political position and influence' to advance their own selfish ends, while speaking sneeringly of him behind his back. Apropos of

the wedding, was it not shocking bad taste on'the parfc of 'Nat Brassey, the eminent sitter on corpses to make the statement he did to the effect that " a subscription was being got up on the Thames to make a present to Mrs Sheehan ?" This kind of thing is generally carried out quietly, without ostentation, publicity, or parade in respectable circles, that is, where the idea of a " subscription " is considered the correct thing. Having' said this, we now wish the bride and bridegroom " long life and happiness."

It was Sunday afternoon. The clock had just sounded the witching hour of three. They weren't bona fide travellers. What was more to the purpose, there wasn't a publican, or barman, or barmaid for three miles in any direction but knew they weren't travellers! Were they thirsty ? Were they not ? Suddenly down Victoria -street came running a little lad with a covered can of tempting and suggestive appearance. ''Boy, do you know what that can contains ' J " said the thirsty one, in his softest tones. " Beer." responded the stripling, promptly. " Exactly. And that beer contains eocculus indicus, corn, starch, rice, meal, glucose hydrophobia, and alcoholic adiposity — all deadly poisons, and each enough to kill any man." The lad set the can down, and moved, a little distance away from it, whereupon the spectacled one picked it up, and was raising it to his lips, when the boy interrupted him by saying — " Ain't you afraid of it ?" " Yes. It's dreadful to die this way. But I don't care to live." And the can fell empty on the pavement as the drinker staggered back against the wall. " He's a goner," muttered the lad, as he walked thoughtfully away. " Lord, what a narrow escape my father had."