YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4097, 8 September 1884, Page 3

YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS.

Blenheim, This day

At the Police Court to-day, a lad of fourteen was charged with throwing rotten eggs into the Salvation Army meeting on Sunday evening. The boy's father was ordered to enter into a bond to keep the peace for three months, and pay costs. This is the first offence of the kind in Blenheim.

Dunedin, This day

Eight boys, whose ages ranged from 10 to 15 years, were brought up at the Police Court.on Saturday on a charge of stealing ducks! They succeeded in purloining no less than thirty" birds within six days. They disposed of the poultry without much difficulty to Chinese for a very fair price, anel two of them found themselves possessed of sufficient means to be able to discard thenhomes and put up for a few days at a cheap re.stuui-ant. It v.-oh this open display of wealth which first put the detectives on the boys' track. One of them named Bates, aged 15, who had been convicted of horsestealing when he was only eleven years of age, was sent to hard labor for a month, and another, who had been twice previously convicted of larceny, got fourteen days. Five of them had previous convictions recorded against them. Those who were first offenders were discharged.

THE WRECK OF THE LASTINGHAM Wellington, This day.

Tho steamer Napier returned from Jackson's Head this morning, but on account of ibe weather was unable"to get round to the side of tho head on which the ship struck. Parties wore laneled on this side of the head, and crossed over the hills to where tho vessel lay, and found her lying on the port bilge, with her deck slanting seaward, and a mast standing out of the water. Picton, This day.

The launch has returned with the three lost men belonging to the Lastingham. They were picked up by the schooner Maud Graham on Friday morning, and afterwards lauded at Mr. Jones' station, where the launch brought them from. The beach near the scene of the wreck is strewn with wreckage, and the mast of the ship is visible. Blenheim, This day.

The three shipwrecked sailors will leave Picton for Wellington by the next boat. Their names arc Thomas Chalmers (a native of tho West Indies), C. Alvarez (a native of St. Michael's Islanels), and George Henry Ward (a negro born in the United State's). Chalmers often traded in the Sounds, and has been shipwrecked before in various parts of the world. Alvarez was once shipwrecked off Mauritius from a cattle ship, and got ashore on the back of a cow. The three sailors were interviewed yesterday, giving- long accounts of the wreck and their subsequent adventures and privations till taken off by a schooner and brought in the steam launch to Picton. Ward appears to have subsisted for two or three days on tallow candles washed ashore from tho vessel. All three men speak well of the ship and officers, but Ward says the Captain drank hard, and he has seen him unable to stand, though he cannot say how the captain was on the night of the wreck. Grog was served out to tho men occasionally. The three men are none the worse for the shipwreck, and speak highly of the kindness of the captain of the schooner, Jones,_ the settler who sheltered them on Friday night, and the authorities at Picton. Ward's opion is that tho officers could handle the ship better than the captain, and that bad the former had charge she would now be at Wellington wharf. Ward was tho lookout man on the forecastle, and heard the men say that one of the passing steamers was so close that they could distinguish the man at the wheel and the officers on the bridge.