A “REAL ACTOR” IN COURT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2544, 3 July 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

A “REAL ACTOR” IN COURT.

! “BRONCHO BILL OF THE WILT j WEST. GETS THREE MONTHS’ ENGAGE , MENT. At the Redfern (Sydney) Police Coun last week, before Mr. King, S.M. Henry G. Churches, aged 37, describee on the charge-sheet as a fireman, but according to his own statement a mar of -many callings, including that of an , actor, was charged with being an idle ■' and disorderly person, having in sumeient lawful means of support. Churches, who is professionally known as “Broncho Bill from the Wild and Woolly West,” is a man of small staturo and delicate physique, has a remarkable flow of language, and. according to the story he gave in Court, he has also had a remarkable experience. . Senior Constable Wi son, of No. 1 divison, stated that he saw the defendant in Redfern-street. He had his hands tied behind his back -with a rope. He was struggling and kicking about the street, and had a crowd around him. He was in a half-naked and filthy condition, and was under the influence of liquor. Witness had known defendant four or five months. He was always about the city. He frequented hotels, going through a performance with ropes, and then passing a hat round for a collection. He never did any work. Constable Too hey, No. 1 division, said he had known defendant for about 12 months. He went about the street with a rope, and asked people to tie him up. He called out, “I’m Broncho Bi’l from the Wild AVest—rope manipulator.” He was arrested on the 9th inst on a similar charge, and was sentenced to three hours in the cells, on the understanding that he would leave Sydney. The business people all over the place complained, and the police had cautioned him over and over again. The defendant, who was anxious to exp’ain his side of the case, was told that his turn had come “Right you are,” he said, as he climbed into the witness-box; and he rattled off, “My name is Henry George Churches. lam a fireman, living at present in Lower George Street —” The Magistrate: AVliat were you doing out in this part of the globe when you were arrested? AAh'tness: I was making for the AATId West, and endeavoring, to ...raise the wind as I went. I thought to myself, I can make a couple of pounds on the road. Sub-Inspector Kelly: .out this is not the road to the AVild AVest. This leads to Botany Bay. AVitness: Ah, well, you see, if I got to Botany Bay—and I have never been where Captain Cook landed—l could then make across country. (Laughter.) The Magistrate: Your knowledge of the geography of this nart of the country is weak. (Laughter.) AVitness: AVell. if your AVorship thinks I should not go to the Wild AVest, 1 can get a ship going to the East, or, if you let me go at once, I can get a berth on the Ortona as fireman. Here are my discharges from several ships. I can get a ship to Melbourne, or I can get one to Hobart. I can talk three or four languages, and you can test me in any of them. 1 have fought for my country, for I was one of the Light Horse Brigade in the Boer AVar. V 1 ride a horse with anybody. I’m an actor and a juggler— Sub-Insprctor Kelly: Acting with a shovel on boardship. (Laughter.) Witness: No; I have done that too,' but I am a real actor, and a juggler. I have refused £2 a week from Harry Rickards. (Laughter.) You let me go your Worship, and I will go straight on board a ship, and will' soon be far, far away. (Laughter.) Sub-Inspector Kel'y: AVhy did you not go on board a instead of coming out here to Redfern? Witness: Well, you see, you fellows wouldn’t give me a chance! Magistrate Pay ten told me not to come back again and I was hardly out of his sight before you fellows had me in again. (Laughter.) Then ; glancing at the .Bench, the witness said, “Some of these policemen, your AVorship, that get into this witness-box, would swear a man’s life away. They are no good. (Laughter.) Sub-Inspector Kelly: AVliat wore you on hoard ship? AVitness: I was shovelling coal, of course: but I’m a born actor, your Worship, and when I’m shovelling coal lam hard up. In fact, I. am on my uppers. (Laughter.) Sub-Inspector Kelly : Where were you on January 24? Witness: In good old London. (Laughter.) i Sub-Inspootor Ke’ly (looking at a paper): Yes, I see I am wrong. Witness: The police are nearly always wrong, or else I would not be here. (Laughter.) , Sub-Inspector Kelly: Open your coat. The witness did so, and showed a clean singlet, without a waistcoat. Sub-Inspector Kelly: You are quite respectable this morning. t AVitness: I am always respectable, your Worship. I have a bag full of clothes over in Hobart. I only came over here on a flying visit. I have been twice round the world. Sub-Inspector Kelly: Have you any means of support? Witness: Yes; I have money in the Bank of England, in good old London, and I have two acres of ground in England also, (Laughter.) I am. not the man the police take me to be. I have nine gashes in my body, obtained while fighting in the Boer war. But, your AVorship, what about letting me get to that ship? (Laughter.) I have never been in gaol in my life. The Magistrate: You have already had one chance. You are sentenced to three months’, imprisonment with hard labor. '

l | CAN GERMANY ATTACK? d ■ l ' ■ -V- - 'i: o • GERMANY’S PLAN. t•_ . I As a contribution to the general uneasiness on the subject oi : the German i"’ menace, the organ of the National Dee .fence Association puts forward serid ously tho theory that Germany does e not need a fleet even equal to the Brie tish before risking war. A resume of a this article, which is entitled “Geri- many’s Plan of Attack,”' is made by y “The Spectator” as follows: “The German believe, for various i reasons, that a German naval force, e even though weaker by 25 per cent than i- ours on paper, would be sufficient! to obtain victory. In other words, while we were counting upon victory because their force was only three-quar-ters of ours, they would consider it fully equal, if not) superior, to ours. ' The grounds on which the Germans hold this belief as most assuredly they do —are as follows :. In the first place, ■ they would bo the assailants, and would thus have the undoubted advantage which always belongs in war to' the atb tack. They could choose the time and . place, and" would strike the first blow. I Next, they hold that owing to the prin- , ciples of construction upon which they l have worked, their navy, ship for ship, i has a superiority of gun-fire over ours, s Into these questions we. cannot enter • in detail, but will only say. that, assum ing tlieir contention to be true, Ger i many would no doubt have an immense advantage, because in the. last resortNAVAL ACTIONS MUST ALWAYS BE DECIDED BY GUN-FIRE. Gun-fire is the absolute essential of the fighting-ship. Just as a soldier is a man who has tho capacity for killing his enemy with a rifle, so a battleship is a ship capable of destroying other battleships by gunfire. -Granted equal capacity to keep afloat and to use her guns, tho victory is to the big ship with the gun-fire as to the big battal-

ions. Thirdly, the Germans believe that their armour-plate is superior to the armour-plate used in British ships. Therefore they claim not only greater offensive., but greater defensive, power. Forthly, they claim the better scientific training of their officers and the superior discipline of their crews. Their officers are more learned, they assert, and ‘the men are more sober, less enfeebled by disease, and better educated than ours. 5 On this matter, however, it is idle to boast. Only the arbitrament of war can decide. “Fifthly, the Germans believe that they possess a superiority in naval strategy over us owing to the fact that they are ‘in possession of a naval plan intended in the. first place to bring about the disorganisation of our naval . preparations, and, in the second place, to facilitate the landing of an invading force on our shores. 5 The writer of tho article in ‘National Defence 5 professes to have seen a secret German naval document that sots forth the plan in question, a plan which he thereupon describes. The .essential condition of this plan is the absolute readiness of the German fleet to sail at a moment’s notice. No formal declaration of war is to be made, and the plan contemplates advantage being taken of the fog which so often envelopes the North Sea. Here it may be noted that the German naval strategists are declared to rely very greatly 'upon the power of their navy to navigate in safety _ (luring periods of fog. Importance is attached to the remarkable achievement of the squadron of Prihco Henry of Prussia, whieLj in December, 1879, got into Portsmouth Harbor during a dense fog. PAST ALL THE FORTS AND GUARDSHIPS, QUITE UNDETECTED. Again, “we are told by the writer in ‘National Defence 5 that it is contended that German navigators have reduced the navigation of the North Sea in fog almost to the dimensions of a mathematical certainty. ‘They have, as it were, mapped it out, and from a given point to a given point, can tell by the rotation of the engine, with almost complete accuracy, where they are. It is an enlarged application of the practice between Dover and Calais, who T on a dark or misty night the cautious captain stops his ship after 2000 revolutions to find out where he is. 5 55 A different summary of the considerations which weigh with thinking Germans on this subject is very confidently given by the “National Review, 55 as follows: “(1) That a determined ‘nation in arms 5 of sixty millions must overcome in any struggle, by sea or land, an irresolute and unarmed community of forty millions. (2) That a nation governed by men of action and expert in the art of war enjoys incalculable advantages over a nation governed by talkers not to say windbags—and amateur strategists. (3) That although the British navy is at present powerful, Great Britain cannot afford to maintain ■ her superiority since she has saddled herself with old age pensions. (4) That British military importance would: in any event PARALYSE THE BRITISH FLEET and prevent it from assuming the offensive, without which success in war is impossible. (5) That any naval reverse would cause such a panic to an unarmed people like the British, dependent for tneir substenance on oversea supplies, as would compel the Government to surrender at discretion. (6) That British statesmen are such simpletons that they can always be fooled by verbal or written assurances into abstaining from serious counterpreparationSi (7) That sentimental Radicals, plus the Labor Party and disaffected Nationalists, can always herelied upon to play Germany’s game and hamper the British Government, even were the latter alive to the. necessities. (8) That a powerful section of the British Press can always be manipulated through the Press Bureau of the Wilhelmstrasse or the Press Bureau of the German Embassy in London, in the interests of Germany. (In this connection we would call attention to the suggestion of a Radical contemporary that Germany’s clandestine construction of Dreadnoughts was duo to the need of finding work for her unemployed 1 Did this originate in the brain of a British, fool or a German knave ?) (9) That England is permanently unready,, and can easily *be surprised whenever Germany chooses to strike. (10) That the German high /sea fleet is always on a war footing, whereas the British squadrons are scattered, disorganised, under-manned and unready. (11) That the cosmopolitan financier of London, who is rarely an Englishman, can be relied on to deal a deadly blow to British credit at the critical moment. (12) That in tho event of a German invasion British action might be paralysed/by the .blowing-il;p of the Admiralty, the. War Offioe, the Post Office, and other Government departments, and by the dislocation of transport through the destruction of bridges by German residents in England, nearly

I ..,i, di .wiiom are trained sokin':r». (rd, But the greatest German asset is the inveterate and, invinoiblo self-compla-cency of : the ordinary Englishman, vhich renders him physically incapable r realising that his country is in dan- : ,'er until it is too late to avert it.”