“WILD AND WOOLLY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 293, 2 March 1928, Page 1

“WILD AND WOOLLY”

PROBLEM PRISONER MADDENED BY FREEDOM GIVEN HIS “FIRST” CHANCE “Thank you—it’s the first chance I’ve ever had. I got 18 months once, and it took me 10 years to serve the sentence,” said William Bruce, aged 41, as he left the dock at the Police Court to-day. JJRUCE appeared for sentence on charges of obtaining credit by fraud, and being idle and disorderly. Chief-Detective Hammond said that accused had been twice declared an habitual criminal, and was released on licence on February 9, after serving four or five years in prison. He had only been out a day or two before he started on his old game. The city mlssioner (Rev. Jasper Calder) said that accused was a wild and woolly man who went absolutely wild when he got freedom after confinement. Addressing the magistrate, Mr. Calder said that a sentence would mean the cancellation of accused’s licence, and he might go back to prison for a “Kathleen Mavourneen.” “Sooner or later,” he said, “there will have to be a system of giving these men freedom gradually. They should be sent out to work, and brought hack to the ‘stone house’ to sleep for a month or two.” Mr. Calder suggested that accused should be given an opportunity to go into the country. The magistrate ordered him to come up for sentence in three months’ time, and also ordered the payment of £2 4s restitution.

It was then that Bruce thanked the magistrate for the chance that had been given to him.