MAORI'S ESCAPADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 225, 21 September 1940, Page 10

MAORI'S ESCAPADE.

"FOUND" BARREL OF WINE, j WELLINGTON", Friday. After having been seen rolling a barrel along MeKcnzie Street, l'etone. in the smail hours of the morning of September 8, Lou Horo Cootes, a Maori, aged 20. pleaded guilty before Mr. A. M. Colliding, S.M.. in the Petone Court to stealing a 40-gallon cask of port wine, valued at £35. Dctcetivc-Sergemil F. X. Robinson said Cootes attended a party on September 7 and partook of liquor. The following morning lie visited the Petone l>olice station and reported finding a barrel of liquor. The liquor was missing from a hotel, and Cootes had been seen between 3 and 5 a.m. that day rolling the barrel along McKenzie Street. It was later ascertained he had left it outside his house on the footpath. Later in the morning he asked a neighbour for help to get the oa-k into his house, but the neighbour refu-ed. and told him to report n to the police, which he did. He told the police he had found the cask. i Cootes was admitted to probation for i-two years. _ _