DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 141, 5 September 1927, Page 14

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

A HARD LUCK STORY (Copyright, 1927) J SAW a news item in the paper the other day and whenever I am feeling bad and as though the world had given me an unjust wallop, I like to get it out and read it. It shows me that lam not oo bad after all. There is a man who told a hard luck story to a Judge, as follows: He said he was a prosperous business man for 25 years, and then fate began to hand him a few. First he lost all his money and tried to recoup his finances by ranching. Then fate settled down to work. His windmill tank blew down, then his cow died, and then a mule that he had just bought for £loo passed away. He got discouraged with farming and moved into the city. This did him no good. There was no use trying to dodge his Jinks. He broke three fingers, then his nose and three ribs were broken and also his collar-bone. Afterwards he had paralysis of one leg from a splinter of glass. Besides this his mother, father and brother were now seriously ill. To top it off his wife, Maggie, had a dog that bit him whenever she commanded it to. She was stronger than he and could whip him and, he didn’t know what to do about it. She called him “Jigg3” because he was so hen-pecked, and the last straw was that after he was in gaol somebody slammed a door on him and smashed his thumb. He was arrested when he telephoned the police to come and get him away from his wife. They found him in bed trying to comfort himself with a bottle of bootleg. The Judge was so grieved that he fined him £25 and then suspended the fine, and let him go with an expression of sympathy. The news item said that the Judge was moved to tears, and I don’t blame him. I wiped my eye a little myself.