ON MOTHER’S DOORSTEP

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 552, 3 January 1929, Page 6

ON MOTHER’S DOORSTEP

VAGRANT SLEEPS OUT WORKS UNDER COMPULSION Having been pestered by her worthless son for months, while at night he slept on her doorstep, a 70-year-old woman of Freeman’s Bay has found it necessary to enlist the aid of the police. Joseph Merrick, a driver, aged 41, was charged at the Police Court this morning with being - idle and disorderly having insufficient lawful means of support. He answered the charge by asserting that he was a worker. Sub-Inspector McCarthy: He has a queer way of showing it. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M.: He works under compulsion only, I suppose. Constable Jones, of Freeman’s Bay, said that Merrick had done one day’s work in five weeks. He had a position but had to leave it as lie would not keep himself clean. The man’s mother, who was 70 years of age, had done her best with him, but he was too fond of drinking and had been addicted to methylated spirits. Merrick had been sleeping on his mother’s doorstep and she had been compelled to call in the police. Merrick once again declared that he was a working man. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M.: Yes, you have worked three months this year—when you were in gaol on a similar charge to this. A sentence of three months’ imprisonment was imposed.