A local barrister, Mr. T. C. Leong, appeared before Mr. Blackburn and Magistrate Kwan on Monday morning, charged with having defaced and illegally marked an official document—ie., a warrant which had been issued for the arrest of Mr. Leang's father who, it was stated, was defendant in a case pending in the Chinese Court.
Det.-Sgt. Ross deposed that he, accompanied by a Chinese City detective, went to the house of defendant with an order issued by the Mixed Court endorsing the warrant issued by the Chinese City authorities. This order was destined for Mr. Leang's father but defendant took the document, made mark on it, and returned it to witness, remarking that his father was not at home.
Mr. Leong, in his defence, said it was monstrous that he should be accused of defacing a Court document. All he did was to put his nama on it as a sign of ac-Knowledgement.
Mr, Blackburn, in dismissing the ease, said he quite believed that Leong. in marking the document, did so simply as an acknowledgement of having seen it. The document, in itself was not suffice lent authority to warrant the arrest of My. Leang's father. At the same time, said the Assessor, it should be borne in mind that the Mixed Court authorities had amount of difficulty in maintaining friendly and harmonious relations with the authorities over the Settlement border and} the utmost care had to be taken to avoid friction with those authorities. Mr. Leang's most discreet and proper procedure, when he had debts on the matter of the w: rant, was to telephone to the police station.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.