THE SEAMY SIDE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 November 1929, Page 7

THE SEAMY SIDE

TOLD THE MAGISTRATE. LONDON, September 16. Last May P.C. Young, of the Aliens Department, said good-oye to . Ignazio Galante, a dark-haired young Italian wa-itec, fn the Eolkestone-Bouiogne boat.

ignazio had been deported, so the officer concluded that they would never meet again. But fate and the Schneider 'Trophy race brought them together this week in a back room on the second floor of a house in Churchstreet, Soho. ‘vood morning,” said Constable Young, removing the bedclothes from Ignazio. “Why this unexpected return ?’ ’

“The Schneider race,” replied Ignazio, and then poetically: “1 came from Ostend to see the seaplanes screaming their song of speed”—or words to that effect.

‘Well you got whacked,” observed Constable Young, and then turned tne conversation to passports.

According to the officer, Ignazio’s passport was a rare and interesting document. It was made out in the name of Bagil Gallani, and the name on the photograph had been removed with acid.

“Out of two bottles, one red, one white,” interjected Ignazio helpfully. “And erasures have been made on three pages,” observed the officer. “‘I ■ rubbed themi out,” explained Ignazio through an interpreter, for at Bow-street Police Court yesterday he had mislaid his knowledge of English. He said he would like to appear before a judge and jury so long as he had not to stand that expense, and Sir Charles Biron, tlie magistrate, obligingly sent him for trial to the Sessions on charges of being in this country after being deported and being in possession of an altered passport.

Pity be widowed mother of Thomas and his two sisters! Thomas, aged 18, was bound over at Thames Police Court for stealing a motor-car, and three days later was arrested in the Strand for loitering with intent to steal from cars. His sister, aged 20, has been convicted of laieeny, and the other, aged 12 has been bound over for a similar offence. Their mother is a hardworking, respectable woman, unable to c-ontrof the predatory instincts of- her family, said Mr Watts, an experienced probation officer. Bad company has brought Thomas to the dock while yet in his teens. It has become a familiar story during the last few years. Almost every week, parents complain to the metropolitan magistrates that their children, after leaving school, threw off the discipline of the home, lose their jobs, chiefly through idleness, and drift into a life of crime. 1 nomas was very angry when he was sent to Borstal. He told the magistrate that a month in prison under remand was sufficient punishment. Indeed. as Mr Watts remarked, he treated his offence jocularly. From the dock at Bow-street he smiled and waved to companions at the back of the court. Will Borstal succeed where the widowed mother failed?