THE CASE OF GEORGE DAWSON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 18 February 1909, Page 3

THE CASE OF GEORGE DAWSON.

ARRESTED FOR POCKET PICKING AT FOXTON.

THREE YEARS AND DECLARED AN HABITUAL CRIMINAL.

At the Palmerston sitting of the Supreme Court yesterday, George Dawson, between 40 and 50 years of age, was charged with theft ou the Foxton racecourse.

The jury brought in a verdict of guilty of purloining a purse from a woman’s handbag. A three-page document was handed in showing accused to have been recently convicted at Auckland for vagrancy. In 1906 he was convicted on two charges of theft at the Supreme Court, Wellington, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, also a number of sentences inflicted in the Courts of New South Wales. In 1884 seven years for assault and robbery. * Maitland, 1883, convicted at Quarter Sessions, four months.

“ Your record from New South Wales “said the judge” includes over 20 cases indecentlanguage, throwing stones, abusive language, riotous conduct, larceny, idle and disorderly, stealing from the person, etc. You have been con--1 victed in South Australia, too.’’ “I should not have been inclined to go so far back to your early youth, but for the circumstance that the string of crime is absolutely continuous from the earliest time right down to the present. Your career in New Zealand is practically a continuation of your record in Australia. Quite apart from the minor convictions, which include sentences from six months down to a fortnight, there have been at least six convictions recorded against you in the Supreme Courts of one Colony or another. Apparently in between them you have filled up your time by petty crimes—crimes justifying sentences up to six months. When I have that before me I must regard your case for the present as a somewhat hopeless one, and it is my duty to see that you don’t prey upon the public, for you evidently prefer a life of crime to a life of work. So far as the present offence is concerned your sentence would have been a moderate one, but one which you would have cause to remember. You will now be sentenced to three years’ hard labour, with the declaration added that you are an habitual criminal. That means that your sentence is indeterminate, till you can satisfy the authorities to the. contrary.”