SAD CASES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16484, 25 February 1914, Page 5

SAD CASES.

YOUNG GIRLS BEFORE THE JUVENILE COURT.

Yesterday’s Juvenile Court was occupied with the hearing of two of the worst cases imaginable, that of young girls going astray. . The first case was that of a girl of fourteen, who, the detectives said, had been reported missing from her home six weeks ago. Her mother gave her lip as uncontrollable. She had stopped at different places under fictitious names, and had been in the Salvation Army Home, but had escaped. An unsigned letter was produced addressed to the girl, but she refused to say who the writer was. The Magistrate, after reading tho letter, said that it was the worst letter from man to woman that he had ever read. In Tact he had never read anything like it in his life. It was almost inconceivable that any man should write a letter like it; especially as it had evidently been written by a married man, and from Dunedin. A woman, who was well spoken of by the police, agreed to take the girl, and Mr Bishop let her go with a warning. The parties, bad hardly been out of Court five minutes when Detective Gibson came in to report that the girl had refused to do anything that her volunteer guardian wished. The woman therefore declined further responsibility, and the case being brought into Court again Mr Bishop committed the girl to Te Oranga until she should be twenty-one years.

, In the second case the girl concerned, who looked much older, was said to be two months under sixteen. Chief Detective Bishop said that the girl had been enticed away from home by a man named Joseph Ayers. She had been away for weeks, and had been found at last locked in a room with tho man Ayers. The mother said that the girl for her own protection should bo committed to a homo till she was twenty-one. The Chief Detective said that the man had been arrested fast night for arrears of maintenance.

, The girl stated that she had been hiding because she did not want tho police to get her. The mother said that the man who had taken her away should be punished. • The girl said no one took her away: . The mother said' that she would like the girl to be committed to Mount Magdala, to be brought up in tho Roman Catholic faith.

The Magistrate pointed out that he had no power to commit the girl to Mount Magdala, which was a purely voluntary institution. If he sent her there now she could walk out in two months, as soon as she was sixteen, and he would then have no power to send her .to an industrial school. He would commit her to .Te Oranga, and no doubt she could be let out of there to Mount Magdala.