AN OLD COLONIST IN TROUBLE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5438, 31 August 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

AN OLD COLONIST IN TROUBLE.

The European Mail of July 5 gives the following account of “An old Australian colonist in trouble,” and of the kind and merciful way in which Mr. Flowers, the Bow-street magistrate, dealt with the case “ At Bow-street, on June 23, Richard Field, aged 78, was examined before Mr. Flowers on the charge of stealing “Dick's Shilling Shakspero” from a bookstall in the Strand. The prisoner stated that he only took up the book to show it to Mr. Lane, who lived two doors off, and who had published his work of “ Travels," with the view of asking him if he had a copy of the work. A gentleman of the name of Budge said that, having seen a report of the case in the papers, he came forward to say what ho knew of the prisoner, with whom he had been acquainted fifty years, since they were fellow apprentices at Crediton, in Devon. They came to London together, and the prisoner had every prospect of doing well in the leather trade, but he went to Australia, got married there, published a book of his travels, and ruined himself. When he was in difficulties witness gave him a cheque for £32 to start him again, but he had a paralytic fit in the streets while on his way to attend the thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, and his head had been affected ever since. Therewas no helping him. He went into lodgings with his wife, paid no rent, and when threatened with expulsion in consequence he set fire to the furniture. He had been married twice, but both wives were dead. He never heard of a third, although prisoner said he was married last week. The secretary of a charitable society connected with the leather trade said that they paid him a pension of £25 per annum for some years. It was discontinued when he wont to Australia, and although he applied for the renewal on his return it was not granted. Ho was ; for some time in a lunatic asylum, from which, however, ho escaped. Mr, Flowers observed that probably th'o dee'ertwa o'{ the leather b'uei-

ness for authorship had caused the downfall of the prisoner, and he was not the only man who had been ruined by printing hooka which no one cared to read or buy. When the prisoner was charged with stealing a pot of preserves on a former occasion, lie did not like to commit a man so aged to prison, and he did not care to do so now. The prisoner was then discharged and sent to the workhouse.