GLAD TO BE LOCKED UP

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 304, 12 May 1941, Page 5

GLAD TO BE LOCKED UP

TWO MEN SENT TO GAOL

SLEEPING ON RAILWAY BRIDGE

Two men who told the police they were glad they had been arrested as it was the means of providing them a bed for the night, appeared before Mr E. L. Walton, S.M.. in the T'auranga Magistrate's Court last week and pleaded guilty, to charges of being idle and disorderly in that the.v had insufficient lawful means of support. They were Allan James Mathews, aged 49, and Cecil Owen Fagan, aged 41, and both' were sentenced to a month's imprisonment. Sergeant D. Austin explained that the two accused we.re arrested, on Wednesday following complaints received by the police the previous night. Neither of them had any money or any means of support. Referring to Fagan Sergeant Aus tin said he came to Tauranga from Whakatane and had, not been doing any work. He had been drinking heavily, and had previously been before the Court. Mathews, said the sergeant, was a single man and came' from the Wanganui district. He arrived in Tauranga in May from Putaruru and picked up with Fagan. He had pawned his coat-. They had beeni sleeping, on tin railway bridge, and' both stated that they were pleased they had been locked up as it gave them a bed. I'n reply to a question by the Magistrate, Sergeant Austin said he knew of no reason why the men should not work. There was plenty of work about the country.