The first case under the shearers' accommodation clause of the Factories Act, 1894, has just been heard at the RIVERTON Magistrate's Court, and illustrates very forcibly the hardship which may be inflicted under this Act if it is not administered with a certain amount of discretion. The defendant was one James ANDERSON, a farmer in the MONTE CHRISTO block, WAIMATUKU. He was charged with providing insufficient accommodation for his four shearers, for whom bunks were rigged up at one end of the shed. They did not complain, and testified in Court that they were satisfied. But the inspector thought otherwise, and ordered a partition to be put up. Mr ANDERSON explained that shearing was just being finished, and that he could not put up a partition before the shed was cut out. Nevertheless he was hauled to Court and had to pay a mitigated fine and expenses amounting to £6. Granted that the partition ought to have been erected, it would have quite met the justice of the case if the defendant had been told to erect it before the next shearing season came round.