HAMPERING THE POLICE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10039, 13 July 1910, Page 7

HAMPERING THE POLICE.

A DUNEDIN MOB. During the trial of a man named John Wilson, for being drunk at Dunedin on Saturday Sub-Inspector Phair saiJ his brother 1 came to his assistance and it took the combined efforts of four constables to get the two of them into a hansom. This was the beginning of the disgraceful scene. The constables were jostled, hooted, and yelled at, causing Wilson to resist more violently. Something like 300 persons witnessed the affair or took part in the jostling and yelling. Finally the accused sot away to the station in a cab, the crowd meantime waiting and yelling for the policeman, Sweeney, who had arrested him. The Magistrate: Was there anything in the mode of arrest to cause this?

Mr Phair: Nothing. Accused j waß treated as any other arrested j man would have been. Had it not been for the attitude of bis brother, backed up by a section of the public, there would have been no trouble. The sub-inspector added that before the cab left the corner a stone was thrown through the window,' and an attempt was made by another person to undo the harness of the horse. The disturbance con tinued for about an hour and a half in' the streets, and more men would yet appear to answer charges.

The worst part of the disturbance took place shortly after ten o'clock, when a roan named John Pringle was taken by Constable Sweeney for disorderly behaviour whils drunk. Pringle himself gave the police no trouble, but the crowd jostled the officers so seriously that the utmost difficulty was experienced in getting the man away. x\s the result of this Charles Graham was arrested on a charges of obstructing the police, and, later on, when Sweeney, accompanied by other memhers or the force and followed by » hostile crowd, was going down lower High street to the station a fifth arrest was made, Walter flae Spence being taken on a charge of incicmg persons to assault the police. When the men were brought before the Court the Magistrate said he would remand all the cases till Friday. Bail was allowed, each man in his own recognisance of £SO and two sureties of £25 each.