CHARGE OF THEFT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5210, 30 November 1927, Page 2

CHARGE OF THEFT.

YOUNG MAN CONVICTED AT M AHTI

ADVISED TO “ TAKE A PULL.”

A brief sitting of 1 the Waihi Policß Court was held on Thursday last, Messrs W. E. Busch and H. B. Dale, j’s.P., presiding, when a. young man named Robert Cook pleaded guilty to a charge of theft of, a shaving stand, valued at 15s, from a boardinghouse at Paeroa on November 23.

Sergeant D. L. Calwell, in detailing the circumstances, said that accused, who was only 21 years of age, had been travelling round the country selling cheap lines of stationery. On the night previous to the offence he had stayed at a boardinghouse at Paeroa and left the following morning, taking with him a shaving stand, the property of Robert Lovett, with whom he had shared a bedroom. Cook came on to Waihi and was seen by Constable Rimmer offering the stolen property for sale, together with writing paper and envelopes, and was taken into custody. The accused, according to his own story, had been selling stationery for the last two months, and by this means earned enough to keep himself. He (the sergeant) believed the story to be correct. Cook had been in trouble only once before, in Auckland, and for the offence, tha* of altering the price of tickets entrusted to him by an association to sell, he had been convicted and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment. He was an illiterate young man, not having 'had the benefit of an educat'on. In the circumstances he would ask the Bench to inflict a short sentence, and in the meantime lie woiild get Into touch with the local welfare officer and try and get Cook something to do and put him on the right road again. The property .had been recovered, and he would ask the Court to make an order for it to be returned to the owner.

The Bench, in recording a conviction and imposing a sentence of seven days’ imprisonment in the Waihi gaol, remarked that alight punishment had been inflicted as a result of the sergeant’s plea for leniency. The accused was advised to “take a pull,” and be more careful in the future.