HARD PLIGHT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 720, 21 December 1933, Page 3

HARD PLIGHT

NAYAL HERO TRAMPS COUNTRY IN SEARCH OF WORK. A pitiful story of a British naval I hero who has been tramping the | country without boots was told to the j Fareham magistrates the other day, when Benjamin Frederick Knight was charged with refusing to perform his casual work at Fareham Poor Law Institution. Knight served in the Dardanalles and at Zeebrugge, and after deserting from the Navy joined the American Marine Corps. Admitting the offence, Knight stated that he wanted to get out to seeure a pair of boots, as those he was wearing were falling to pieces. iH'e went on to tell the magistrates details of his chequered career in various parts of the world. He served in the British Navy from 1913 to 1932, and took part in operations in the Dardanelles and at Zeebrugge. He was a member of the cr-sw of the obsolete cruiser H.MIS. Iphigen'a, which was sunk to block the Zeebrugge channel on St. George's Day, 1918, and with other shipmates was picked out of the water by a motor launch under terrific enemy fire. Honourably Dischiarged. He deserted from the Navy and afterwards saw service in Canada; before crossing intto the United States, where he joined the American Marine Corps, from which he was honourably discharged on grounds of disafo-ility. Since then he had- .been in the mercantile marine. Sometimes he assisted bookmakers at different race meetings, but he had had no regular employment for a year. Sergeant McNally told the Bench that Knight's account of his naval

services was correot, and he had never been in trouble before. IMr. Case, master of the Poor Law Institution, remarked that the man would not have been in his present position, but he openly defied the authorities- before oth'er casuals, and discipline had to be maintained. The ehairman told Knight he had a record to he proud of, but the regulations of public institutions had 'to be caxried out. Knight was sentenced to one day's detention. Before leaving the court he was promised a pair of boots and was handed a small sum of money by a sympath'etie onlooker who had heard his story.