OLD MAN’S SAD PLIGHT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 63, 19 March 1913, Page 5

OLD MAN’S SAD PLIGHT.

(Per Press Association.)

Auckland, March 17

When arrested at “Mount Albert yesterday on a charge of vagrancy an old man named Samuel Finlay told rather a remarkable story. A boy was passing a shanty in Mount Albert road when the old man called to him and asked him to get him some bread, at the same time stating that he had had his jaw broken. The boy went along to Constable McGlone, at the Mount Albert Police Station, and informed him of the old man’s plight. The constable visited the shanty and questioned Finlay, who said he was 57 years of age, and that he was a native of Belfast. Some years ago he was an officer on a big steamer at Home. Subsequently he took part in the Spanish-American war, and when in action at Havana he received a sabre wound in the lower jaw which, since then, had been a source of continual trouble to him. Later the old man said he served on several of the Union Company’s steamers, and later still, worked on a whaler. After leaving the whaler he went digging gum, and five days ago he found the shanty in which he was discovered. Continuing his narrative,. Finlay, who is evidently a well educated and cultured man, said that he would rather starve than beg, and for five days he had subsisted on acorns which he had plucked from a tree near by. A heap of acorn husks in the shanty lent color to his statement. He did not wish to leave the shanty, saying lie would rather end his days there. However, seeing that the man was evidently very ill, the constable arrested him on a charge of vagrancy so that ho could receive proper attention. Constable McGlone took him to his own house and tried to induce him to eat, but the old man re--1 used and said he was too ill. Finlay was then brought into Auckland. Ho was examined by Dr. Murray, who asserted that the man was suffering from the effects of a sabre Avound in the lower jaw, also from want of food due to his circumstances, and to the fact that he could not open his mouth to eat, Finlay Avaa then removed to the hospital.