PAGE FROM DICKENS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 673, 27 October 1933, Page 7

PAGE FROM DICKENS

AN "OLD LAG" WHO CAN TELL A GOOD TALE. ELOQUENCE IN DOCK. Charles Dickens would have liked William Reynolds, an old lag who' can tell the tale, says ia writer in the Daily 3V£ail. Nobody could he so innocent as Wiilliam looked as he stood in the dock •at Marylehone Police Court. He beamed at th'e Bench thi-ough his spectacles, and he seemed t;o adorn the dock by h'is presence. A young constable testified diffi-

dently that William was persistently thrusting a packet of poems on nervous women, so he arrested him for insulting hehaviour. "I see you are descrihed as an orator," s:aid MJr. Bingley, the mag:strftte. "No, sir," replied William modestly. "That was a mistake, a weak ccncession to vanity. I am a mere lahourer." • j But William is an onator, and never ' will he he a mere labourer. Listen to his speech from the dock. "At the age of 60,00 he soliloquifeed, "I have got into the habit of eating . and can't leave it off. Just a human weakness. 1 "I am sorry for old people, people | virtue — -taet. Tact, my dear sir; con- | sideration for the feelings of otliers. 8 "Ia msorry for old people, people even older than myself, who, suffering from the hot weather, upset by the noise of the traffic and corifused by the swift urge of modern life, are apt to lose their heads. Ihe modern world is no place for ^the old. "Yes, sir, I was well brought up, and I have always played the, game. The summer sun was shining, and I had taken a heavy meal of bread and cheese and a cup of tea at a stall that knows me well, and I was going to met my dear sister, whom 1 have not seen for years. I was going to take her to -Richmond, and there, combin'ing business with pleasure, we would gaze together on old Father Thames. "Then came along the young officer, the young man who played the -game. He did not take me by the arai. No. He walked by my side on a glorious sunny day." We were all impressed, including the magistrate, who inquired, "Any- * thing known against him?" ^ '"Fifty convictions for lai'cency .and oth'er things," said the gaoler coldly. "Ah, yes," agreed William soothingly, "but never one for insulting hehaviour. Tact, my dear sir, tact. It is my one virtue." "You go to Richmond and bask by the river," di-rected the magistrate. "Thank you, sir," said William. Put that oration from the dock into a page of Dickens, and it would not be out of pla-ce. The Dickgns types still survive.