A tale of bicycles and law

A motor procession carrying soldiers from the s.s. Tofua, leaves the shed at Rattray Street wharf...
A motor procession carrying soldiers from the s.s. Tofua, leaves the shed at Rattray Street wharf for Kensington Drill Hall. - Otago Witness, 3.11.1915.
The tinkle of the bicycle bell arrested the attention of, but did not hold it, of a tall man in ordinary clothes who was walking along the footpath in a suburban borough.

He thought it was to warn some children playing on the roadway.

Another more imperative tinkle caused the pedestrian to glance over his shoulder, and the front wheel of the bicycle came into view.

Instinctively the pedestrian put out his arm and laid a restraining hand on the handlebar.

''Isn't the roadway wide enough?'' he queried.

''Oh, we always ride on the footpath out here,'' confidently answered the cyclist.

''No one bothers about us.''

''Doesn't the policeman say anything?'' asked the pedestrian.

The unsophisticated youth replied that they generally managed to dodge him.

The conversation pleased the pedestrian, and he asked if the youth had had any close ''shaves'' of being caught.

The cyclist admitted that on two occasions he had had to push his bicycle faster than usual to rush past a man in blue who was walking in front of him on the footpath.

''You don't know me, I suppose?'' blandly asked the walker.

The youth was losing interest in the exchange of courtesies; he wanted to get along on his business; he said he didn't know the man who had accosted him.

Then the pedestrian ended the friendly talk.

''I'm the new policeman,'' he remarked with a sardonic smile, ''and I'll be obliged for your name and address.''

• Sir, - I am glad to see that someone besides myself is disgusted with the way in which certain hotels in Central Otago are managed.

I consider it a perfect disgrace, and it is too bad altogether that the publicans should escape punishment, as they are doing.

Do you not think it seems strange that these accidents and fatalities should have occurred, yet the publicans still retain their licenses?

One town in Central Otago is notorious for the drinking that goes on in it, but instead of any improvement, things are becoming worse, simply because no hotelkeeper has been interfered with.

What is needed very much is a detective or some other police authority to visit these hotels during the early hours of the morning.

I feel sure he would not be disappointed.

There are publicans who will serve these poor victims until they get every penny from them, and then they are thrown out.

What care they whether the men they have been serving reach their destination in safety or meet their death?

As long as nothing appears in the inquests regarding drink they are quite safe.

- I am, etc.,
Thoroughly Disgusted.

• Sydney: Australians are said to be endowed with a lot of sunny optimism, and none can say that we are downhearted.

Everybody seems by natural disposition inclined to keep going along the same old happy lines.

But the squeeze exercised by the war is making itself irresistibly felt.

From week to week one sees in and about our cities the sign ''To Let'' displayed outside of offices and dwellings to a wholly unfamiliar and rapidly-increasing extent.

On all sides people who have city offices are reducing their rented accommodation or sharing offices with others in a way that would not have been thought of before the war.

Whole floors of big buildings in Melbourne and Sydney that were formerly crowded are now empty and silent.

The same is the case as regards residential hotels. Owners of rent properties are beginning to be very anxious, and with good reason.

Taxation is multiplying as fast as rent receipts are coming down. - ODT, 8.11.1915.

 


• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ


 

 

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