LOVE A LA LEAD

NZ Truth, Issue 1206, 10 January 1929, Page 4

LOVE A LA LEAD

Young Man's Attempt to Mend Break With Sweetheart By Means ol A Revolver ; ASSAULT CHARGE SEQUEL (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Eepresentative) . ■..» * • . - Love may laugh at locksmiths, but even the faintest giggle vanishes when an impulsive swain takes to a revolver to bring back his bonny to him. ' As a result of his unorthodox manner of wooing, a young man of the Queen City has been parted from the girl of his heart, provided he carries out the conditions of his release after being ordered to come up for sentence if called upon. ;

TT happened that the gentle passion of a young man named James Alfred Essex Grundy had' run off the lines, had torn up the track, and generally had wre cked his cardiac regions. He found that "To be wrath with one we love. doth work like madness m the brain," so much so that he somehow, and somewhere, procured a nice little nickle plated revolver of a cheap Yankee make..

Having: entered the house of his sweetheart he gave general indications that he, under the stress of his.blighted affection, might do her, or himself, some injury. •

As an outcome of James's dramatic, or^melodramatic, behavior, the burly form of Constable Boag, of Grey Lynn, was called m at the: wish of the young man's father, and he wasted no time m taking the love- " ' ■

sick re.volverflourisher into his

arms, subsequently relieving him of

his weapon and some cartridges.

It was then that James said that he intended to administer a dose of lead to himself. On the matter of what he might have done to the girl he was indefinite, but he admitted that he had been looking for, her. James 'subsequently made his appearance before Magistrate Cutten, arid having been remanded he came up agv.in last week to meet the charges of assault, and having m his possession a firearm. • ' . ,

Lawyer Hall Skelton was present to look after the accused's interests. He pleaded guilty to the latter charge, and not guilty to the former. The girl m the case, said Albert Victor Whiting, a pastor of the New Lynn Congregational Church, had come to stay with himself and his wife at his wife's invitation.

On December, 21, the love-sick youth had come to the church, had followed him into the school-room and had then locked the door. " He made it clear that

Locked The Door

he wished, to use physical violence towards witness. •■'. • ;

Seemingly he laid the separation between himself and the girl at the .pastor's door, alleging that the .latter had been trying to keep them apart for months.. .'"■■.>

The pastor had tried diplomacy, and advised James to see the girl and terminate the whole matter. The two young people met the next day and it was related that James had a revolver with him.

Grundy's father told Sub-inspector McCarthy m court that the whole trouble arose from the fact that the girl wished to break the affair off.. "He can mould her to his will J* ust & s ne wishes," he- said. , r As for the girl m the case whatever she might have said will never be recorded, for she fainted. James, m somewhat tragic .tones, announced to the bench that he

; : would go to Melbourne. "That will prove that I have finished," he said. "All she can say," said Sub-inspector McCarthy, "is that Grundy said he would end it with a revolver. She ran upstairs." Lawyer Hall Skelton thought it was his turn and he spoke up to say: "Grundy is too .sincere a lover; he should be under the care of some reputable person. They are both highly neurotic." ,

Before the proceedings terminated, James gave an undertaking that he would leave the, rain-rsoaked Queen City that night, and on that condition he. was convicted, and ordered to come up when called upon. Thus once more the path of true love has been a path of screenings, and two more have been severed for all time.

The' last that was. seen of the revolver was when it was being pushed into the hip pocket of P.C. Buckley to be deposited at the central station.