A PROMISING THIEF.

NZ Truth, Issue 138, 8 February 1908, Page 6

A PROMISING THIEF.

Taylor's Terrible Love for Bikes. "Six months' imprisonment." Quite a common sentence for a magistrate to pass. Why he doesn't make it five and a half, or five and threequarters, or five months and two days, has never been divined, but at all events Sydney Lloyd Taylor, of Christchurch, -deserved his sixer and something more. He is a plain bike thief, and sometimes lots of his sort get away with pedalled goods and aren't caught. Taylor has a youthful face, and has set out on the circular bike track with rather a bad start. He was tempted once before and fell in— or rather the owner of the bike fell •m temporarily and had the rotter police-tracked and breakfasted m a dungedn cell, and then police magistrated. On account of his sunburnt youth and his magnificent repentance and the fact that it> was his first offence, he was given a chance by Magistrate Bishop, who told him in ' fatherly tones to go and prig no more. The excuse given by Taylor on that occasion was that he was full of siquare rigger and that his brain was paralysed m consequence, and that he wasn't responsible for his, actions. Well, he seems to thieve pretty well when he is controlled by the GHOSTS OF DEAD MARINES, for on the present occasion he entered a shop, and, telling the youthful occupant thereof that he was a bicyide dealer, he borrowed a four-quid machine for a ride, and promptly rode down ithe street and sold It. The cheap machine was the property of Herbert Wiggs. Then he got away with seventeen quids' worth of bike, the property of Stanley Wilton A'Court, and. Thomas Austin lost a fowling-piece worth four soys., and Taylor says that be took the lot when beer held sway, and he was having a merry day. Now, what a drinky, snookering -snout is liable to do with .a gun when he has too -many^ m may well be imagined, but. nothing happened this time. The queer part of accused's rotten behaviour was that when he was copped he told' the energetic detectives that he intended pleading guilty to all three charges. After that little say so the police didn't summon witnesses. Then the sorry sinner saw barrister Donnelly and said that he wasn't guilty of the malversation of the £17 hike, so Donnellv defended. The sooner had told two different yarns, and when he intimated that he would now plead guilty to all three charges, counsel withdrew.- So the prisonei went up for six months altogether. He is a promising thief.