THEFTS IN POST OFFICE.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 8 June 1910, Page 3

THEFTS IN POST OFFICE.

OFFICIAL GETS NINE MONTHS

DRASTIC COMMENT BY THE

JUDGE

[l'Eft PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WANG AX (H, Tin's Day

hi the Supremo Court this morning .fudge Edwards, im .sentencing a man named Beattie lor theft of a postal note from Marlon Post Ollice, said that from the time of the passing oil' the first Offender Probation Act lie had intim<ated that in no circumstances would postal officials, convicted of stealing letlters passing through the Post Office, he admittedl to probation. Such thefts might have, and did have, an effect far beyond that attaching Ito stealing money under ordinary circumstances. The postal official who rftole a letter passing from husband to wife might, by his act, drive the woman into tlie arms of another man. In tliis country where so many men had ito seek maintenance for themselves and families in remote country districts, and where breadwinners had to remit io rho;r wives and families sums tliev earned, it might follow tint if a letter, containing such remittances, were stolen in the Post Ollice the wife might lie driven into the arms of another man. Tndeed. families might he broken un and lives endangered by such thefts. Tn sucli cases it wrs absolutely essential that corresnondenee naming through the Pent Office must he kept sacred. In the present case, said ihis Honour, the prisoner had shown everv indication of callousness and in-human-it''. TTe had stolen a letter eontaming CI which an old woman toHering on the verge of her "'vivo had sent to her son. who had been the virtim of an accident. Knowin<r this lie took the paltry'sum and Vent it for some months, and then dpvr.tfd it to nueno.ses of <?;nnblin"\ IT'S Honour said he should rrive full effect to the recommendation of the i'M'v for le'Mfiiev, .and s""+"'iced Reatttie'to months' hard labour.