"RAN OFF THE RAILS"

NZ Truth, Issue 1211, 14 February 1929, Page 7

"RAN OFF THE RAILS"

Plea For Young Woman Who Was Easily Led Astray

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin Representative)

Very aptly was the behavior of Hilda Norma Illing Iworth described by her own counsel m the Dunedin Police Court the other day, when, of the girl, it was said, "She N got off the rails. ' '

OF course there was nothing else for it. She had to crash. And

crash she did, piled up m a tearful huddle m the dock of the Dunedin Police Court.

;It was only at Christmas-time when, with a girl companion, she made a cheap excursion of a taxi ride from Invercargill to Timaru, that the magistrate sought to guide her back on to the track of good behavior. Besides the Invercargill taxi-man's unpaid £ 14, there were one or two sums of money fraudulently acquired m Dunedin that the girl had to answer for, and with a two years' term of probation, the Timaru magistrate hoped to steady the young miscreant's pace.

But no./ She returned to Dunedin and got straight to work with the very same story as before — the "sick child" plea.

Arraigned before Mr. Bartholomew, S.M. at the city police court, the young woman looked forlorn and frightened. On the girl's behalf, Mr. A. Hanlon pleaded guilty to charges of obtaining money by false pretences; £2

having been obtained from John Alexander Johnston on December 30, £2 from William Henry Perkins on January 19 and a similar amount from^Lewis Helm on January 22. "It is true she got off the rails" Mr. Hanlon pleaded, "but she is easily led."

Accused had an illegitimate child to maintain, 'no order having been made against the child's father. The girl lived with her parents m Dunertin, and her father had been out of work for soine time. Possibly suggested counsel, her dishonesty had been urged by an effort to help m the support of the home.

Counsel averred that the case was not one m which prison was the only punishment, and mentioned the willingness of Adjutant Glover, to take the girl into the Salvation Army Home. Remarking that he would give her one more chance, his worship entered a conviction and ordered Illing-" worth to come up for sentence m six months' time, during which period she must remain m the charge of the Salvation Army.