FAILURE TO PAY A FARE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 71, 16 November 1912, Page 7

FAILURE TO PAY A FARE.

London, August 30

“How a woman in your position, wearing feathers and jewellery, ami apparently trying to be a lady, could act in this way, I can’t imagine. It is not the, act of a lady to cheat a railway Company, and it is not the act of a lady to tell lies. The fact is, you are practically a thief as well as a liar. It is a disgraceful case,” said the magistrate at West London yesterday to Miss Marie Louise Pristo, of Wimbledon Park Road, Southflelds, who was charged on a. summons with travelling on the district railway without paying her fare. The evidence showed that defendant took a ticket, from a slor. machine at Charing Cross to Victoria. She remained on the train until it arr'vcd at Southflelds, where she tendered a penny to the collector, saying “From East Putney.” She was stopped by a ticket examiner who had travoile 1 with her from Charing Cross, and repeated that she had come from Last Putney.

Questioned further, she alleged that she got in at Earl’s Court and alighted at Putney Bridge, where she bought a paper, threw her .ticket away, and then got into a train and came on to Southfields. When the examiner told her ho had followed her from Charing Cross she offered to pay her fare. She had not left the carriage from Charing Cross to Southfield®. Mr Oswald Hanson (for the defence) said he could not resist the evidence of the railway officials, and all he could say for the defendant was that she had been in indifferent health lately, and that there was no need for her to do such a thing. There was no suggestion in the evidence that she had done such a thing before. Mr Fordhara (the magistrate) : Is that so?

Mr Ellis (prosecuting): I am sorry to say there is reason to believe that she has done it before—in fact, she has been under observation. Mr Fordham observed that there was no redeeming feature in the case. The defendant had not the excuse of a poor man, who might find it difficult to pay his fare to get to his work. “You must pay a fine of 40s and 38s costs,” ho added, “or go to prison for one month.”