STEALING POSTAL PACKETS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1599, 17 August 1916, Page 3

STEALING POSTAL PACKETS.

GRAVITY OF THE OFFENCE

The gravity of the offence of stealing postal packets was referred to by his Honour Air Justice Chapman in the Supreme Court, Wellington, on Tuesday, when passing sentence on a youth named Daniel Alexander Al’Donald, who hail pleaded guilty to such an offence at New Plymouth. The youth came up for sentence last Saturday morning, but if was deferred. His Honour, on ’Tuesday morning, said that he had further considered the case, and he was sorry to say that he could not do otherwise than pass sentence of imprisonment. It was well known throughout the Postal service that the Court did not grant probation in cases of stealing postal packets. The offence was a very serious one, and there were several reasons for treating it as one in which probation could not be granted, except, perhaps, in very rare instances. The consequences attending the theft of postal packets were for more serious than in an ordinary case of stealing, or even stealing from an employer. There was the fact that these thefts were secret, and many times those in charge could not be sure as to who the actual offender might be, and unfair suspicion might rest on other men in the same ofliee. But there were other consequences. A great number of packets and letters containing money were posted, in many eases from men working in the country to their wives in town. If these letters were stolen ami the rightful owners did not receive them the immediate consequences might be somewhat serious in, say, the case of a struggling family. There might also be the further consequence that a woman failing to receive money from her husband in such circumstances might be led to the belief that he had deserted her.

“For these reasons probation cannot be granted,” concluded his Honour, addressing the accused, “and the only way which I can help you is by giving you a short sentence and making it for reformative purposes. Although when arrested you gave the police every assistance, yet you admitted a series of thefts and indicated that you knew of others committing similar offences. If that was not conspiracy, it was very near it. You will be sentenced to sis months’ reformative detention.”