TAMPERING WITH LETTERS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 838, 9 June 1910, Page 6

TAMPERING WITH LETTERS.

THE JUDGE'S REMARKS. (By Telegrarih—Press Wanganui, June S. ■ In tho Supreme Court this morning, Mr. Justice Edwards, in sentencing Beattie for theft of a postal note from the Marton I'ost Office, said that from tho time of the passing of the First Offenders' Probation Act he had intimated that ill no circumstances would postal officials convicted of stealing a letter passing through the post nfiico bo admitted to probation. Such thefts might have and did have an'effect far beyond that, attaching in stealing money under ordinary circumstances. The postal official who stole a letter parsing ti'om husband to wife might by his act drive a woman, inio the amis of another man. In this country, where so many men had to seek 'maintenance of themselves and families in remote country districts, and where breadwinners had to remit to their wives imd families sums they earned, it might follow that if a letter containing such remittances were stolen in the post office the wife might be driven into the arms of another man; indeed, families might bo broken up and lives endangered by such thefts. In such oases it was absolutely essential that correspondence passing through the post office must be kept sacred. In the present case, sain lu's Ilonoiir, prisoner had shown every indication of callousness ami'inhumanity, lie had stolen a letter containing i'l which an old woman, tottering ou the verge of her grave, had had sent to her by soii who had been tho victim of an accident. Knowing this, he look the paltry Slim, kept it for some months, and then devoted it to purposes of gambling. His Honour said he would.give full effect to _ the recommendation of tho 31117 for leniency, and ho sentenced accused to nine months' hard labour.