Days of future past

The prejudice of the press seldom gets as extreme as that seen in the NZ Truth. A Hamilton story from December 1923 was meat and drink for a paper never short of an opinion.

Edmund Robert Lopez was a porter at Waikato Hospital. Nominally a victim of a late-night assault in Memorial Park, Lopez’s ethnicity became an issue in the Truth’s coverage of the resulting court case. The paper preferred to use his alleged nickname, ‘‘Black Bob’’. He was also referred to as ‘‘an undersized Negro’’ and ‘‘this n----- man’’.

There was no doubt that Lopez had been assailed. His body bore the scars. Exactly why he was in the park at night, though, became a crucial part of the defence. Lopez claimed he had gone there to enjoy a smoke, only to fall asleep. He awoke to find someone rifling through his pockets. When he resisted, he was punched and kicked ‘‘in no uncertain manner’’. Five pounds was stolen.

The defence alleged that the real reason Lopez was in park was that he was a ‘‘Peeping Tom’’. Without producing witnesses, it alluded to an earlier incident at the Hamilton Lake when ‘‘Black Bob’’ had been caught spying on a canoodling couple.

Mr C McDavitt was charged with the assault. He did not deny it. McDavitt’s story was that when he entered the park the Negro was already being ‘‘thrashed’’ by another man. The assailant told McDavitt that he had ‘‘caught Lopez crawling in the grass spying on him and his young lady’’. According to the Truth, this unnamed gentleman had declared, ‘‘I’ll teach you to interfere in my business, you cow,’’ and then proceeded to administer the beating.

McDavitt claimed that he had interceded on the Negro’s behalf, breaking up the fight. He only laid hands on Lopez when the Negro refused to let the other man leave the scene of the crime. Further fisticuffs followed, with McDavitt finishing what the first assailant had started. When the police arrived, he was arrested.

The court, much like the NZ Truth, sided with the white man. McDavitt was acquitted.