THE PIRATES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 127, 31 December 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE PIRATES.

"(By ifrETA'N SHARP in the "Christian Commonwealth.")

He was a kind magistrate, eminently ntteu 10 preside over the Cmidren s court, .but lie hau aireauy heard niteeu uduit cases m tue morning; and the day was hot; and he had made a mistake in uaviug roast beei instead 01 cOid iamo tor lum neon. Koast beei always inade him sleepy in hot weather. So when young Kooert Jackson wad brought bet ore him, charged wit J tiiert lor the third time m s x months, he uid not icei ue was in the best possible term tor dealing with him. Ho liKed the lad s race as it looked up at mm teanessiy Horn the dock, tie remembered liking it betore, and giving him jn consequence another cham.c —ino chances, su tact, but this was the third time, and something more drastic would be expected of tue law. £ren Robert's lather knew that, as he sat, inarticulate but suffering accutely, at the back of the court with Robert's mother. Robert's mother knew it too, as she sat, anything but inarticulate, with him, casting looks of anger at the magistrate who was about to sit .n judgment on her <n>n, and the magistrate, aware of her attitude, although her remarks were inaudible to him, was conscious of wishing that she had stayed at home. He was sorry for her, genuinely sorry. But this was a man's business; if the parent's consent should be needed the father was there to give it. The' presence of the parent whom the law did not recognise only complicated matters. "Poor woman 1" concluded the magistrate, in his mind, humanely, as he tought hie feeling of lethargy ami braced" himself to aeai with Robert's case. " Come, come," he found himself say. ing, "you shouldn't have done that, you shouldn't have done that. You know as well as I do that it is wrong to steal. You will never get on in the world, you know, if you take other people's property." A slight disturbance at the back of the court brought him to a pause. The inspectors' voice could be heard saying, soothingly: "There, there! Hadn't you better come outside till it's all over P" The lad's eyes did not waver as he gazed unflinchingly at the magistrate. His fingers player nervously with his cap; that was all. His worship hastened to bring it to an end. Now, what made you steal that rope, my lad? Did you want money ?" "No, sir," came swiftly from th> dock.

"Don't you know it is wrong to steal?"

"Yes, sir," not quite so promptly "Then why did you take it?" No answer.

Come, come, you must have had sumo reason. Did ;.ou steal it lot B'hivloaj else?" "No. sir."

"Why.sfcen?" Again no answer. Again that slight disturbance at the back of the court. The magistrate glanced irritably at the inspector, then looked back again at the small offender in the dock, h:s unusual feeling of ineptitude slightly reinforced. He was conscious ot the woman being gently removed, protesting as she went, and the consciousness did not improve his chances of dealing wisely with Robert. Robert kept his eyes fixed on the Bench above him. His fingers worried his cap unceasingly. He would have liked to tell the magistrate about that glorious ten minutes down by the c-anal'; but he s;mply couldn't. The old jos?er might laugh; or he might stare at him as if he thought ho had gone barmy; there was no knowing what he might do, and because there was no knowing Robert preferred to remain on the 6aio side and say nothing. Besides, he couldn't have explained it; the words wouldn t come; so uat settled it. The magistrate's tone suddenly aarj. ened. "It you can give me no expmuyion of your act I have no choice lot to deal with you severely," he said, briskly. The boy's fingers slopped twitching; his chance was gone and he knew it, and all because the words wouldn't come. The alert, fearless look died out of his eyes; he became sullen, hang-dog, unattractive. Tiio magistrate said something to a constable, and Robert's father shuffled into the witness-box.

No, he didn't rightly know whit had made the boy steal the rope. His mother said (here the magistrate's look warned him that he was straying from the point)—well, he didn't know why the lad stole the rope, nor yet the tarred wood last month, nor the turpauliu afore that. It ,wa6 very upsetting to have a son who brought utsgrace on him like that. There wasn't no reason for it, neither; he'd been brought up to know right from wrong. Would he consent to his going to an industrial school ? Well, that would mean losing the boy, wouldn't it? His mother

"Yes l , yes," interrupted tho magistrate. "His mother, yes. Naturally she will grieve at parting from him. Very natural, yes, yes. But this is a question of the boy's future, Mr. Jackson. We must do the best we can for him—yes? His mother would have no objection to that, I'm sure." Robert's father, twisting his cap between his lingers as Robert did, supposed not, though without conviction. But he was not unmoved by the magistrate's way of speaking to him as man to man; and he agreed without any more persuasion that the future of Robert was the only thing to be considered, that he as Robert's father and legal parent was best qual'lied to deal with that, and that the magistrate was very good to suggest sending the lad, after what ho had done, to an industrial school. For it might have been a reformatory, as the magistrate mentioned in the few kind but firm words of advice he addressed to Robert before he dismissed him. But Robert, his pluck and fearlessness gone, Btood sullenly before him, shaken from head to foot with groat sobs. He would have faced death or torture with a smile — but the indignity of an industrial school left him shattered. Besides, he had heard enough about industrial school left him shattered. Besides, he had heard enough about industrial schools to feel that he might as well have been sent straight to hell. The magistrate, disrobing himself in the ante-room, consoled himself with the hackneyed reflection that the boy wou'd soon get over it. In the charge room, where, tho part ing over, Robert's mother was being given a cup of tea to pull her round, Robert's legal parent was no longer al lowed to feel that he was the best person to deal with his son's future. In the course of a voluble cross-examina-tion he was forced to admit that hit had said not a word to the magistrate of Robert's fatal passion for the "pictures,"' not a word of the lad's reputation on the canal hank as a pirate chief, not a word of the probable use to which the tarred wood and tho tarpaulin' and the rope had been put in their character of Rtage properties. And why, demanded Robert's mother wrathfuily, had he been silent when, if he luJ bul spoken up accord'iig lo

directions, the boy would have been saved from disgrace und the industrial school >

"I tried to tell his worship," said her husband, lamely. "But it seemed so silly when I come to spit it out; and his worship, he'd ha' thought it silly, too; and so-—" "Silly? *sobbed his' wife. "Seems to me if the pair ot you was too high and mighty'to enter into the child's feelings about pfates you didn't ought to hare tie settling of hs future. It don't seem silly to me!" Robert's legal parent, twisting hi* cap mechanically in his fingers, felt there was something in what she said.