A Remarkable Boy

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 70, 15 November 1883, Page 3

A Remarkable Boy

«. . (PER UNITED PBESS ABSOCt_kTI"X.) Wanganot, This D«y. A remarkable youth named John Rote, 15 years of age, was brought up at tho Police Court this morning, ou three separate eh urges of setting fire to a gorse fence, breaking into the school at Fordeil arid stealing a. pair of boots from a house at Fordeil, all on Sunday morning last, to all of which he pleaded truilty. He is a son of most respected settlers of Wanganui. It appears that on Saturday night he commenced operations by vinuing up all people in one of the streets, and afterwards going to William's place and stealing a horse. Mounted on this, ar>d wearing a pair of blue spectacles got on credit earlier in the evening at a local jewellers, he rode up to the fire bell, pulled it heavily, and then rode off in the country district as far as Fordeil. Here he broke into a blacksmith's shop, stole a clock and hid it in a bakehouse, and then went into a place of worship taking put the interior of the harmonium, and dissecting it. He next knocked a farmer up in the middle of the night, to find his way to a settler's house, directly he had gone in again setting fire to his gorse fence. He then went to a house and stole a pair of boots, which he afterwards threw away, going to the local school, into which he got through' the window, and poured the ink all over the tables and into the clock, scratching maps, and doing other damage. He has the reputation of committing similar acts in the past, and the bench remanded him for medical examination.