MUDDLED MAURICE.

NZ Truth, Issue 128, 30 November 1907, Page 6

MUDDLED MAURICE.

A-Charge That Would Not Hold.

The delightful damp that is procurable m a grog emporium is often of a fiery nature. Also, it fires the nature of the drinker, and m ibhe case of Ernest Hugh James Maurice, of Christchurch, it led him to set fire to his house. Wherefor he was charged with arson. The 'gentleman's spiritual devotions are carried on rather extensively once he gets a I move on, his particular saint, to Whom he pay.s allegiance m the bar parlor being St. Tom, who is understood to be intimately associated with a gin of that name. Maurice's partiality for the watery colored stuff, with a smell that is unfit for publication, maddens him at times, and he really doesn't know what 1 he is about. He sot fire to a firescreen the other night, but it burnt out. It couldn't have done any harm anyway, "because the walls arc plastered. Mrs Maurice was pretty excited by her husband's conduct, and was relieved when Mrs Alice Thomas, who had known Maurice tor 30 years, and her daughter, Beatrice .Thomas, a dressmaker,

ARRIVED ON THE SCENE. He went 'into his bedroom and afterwards, when Mrs Maurice and Mrs Thomas entered, they found that a candle had been set down amongst some books and paper by the bedside, and that the paper was afire. Mrs Thomas seized the burning material and stamped it out on the verandah. The excited Mrs Maurice now sent for the police, and when Constable Matthew arrived, Maurice told him that he set fire to the show because, they wouldn't give him 'another drink. The man was about

drunk at the time. Later on he told J3ergt. Gordon that he could do what he liked m his own house. The intention of his wife was that he should have a night m the lock-up to sober him up. He couldn't do much damage m the way of fire because there were too many people watching him. The S.M. said he wa>s satisfied no jury would convict, and dismissed. Muddled Maurice is a bootmaker, but gin and leather don't go well together.