SIX SINGLETS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 705, 3 July 1929, Page 10

SIX SINGLETS

HAUL FROM CITY SHOP A witness on whom Arthur Archie Thomas was relying to support a story that he told in the Police Court this morning failed him miserably, with the result that he was convicted of stealing six singlets from a city shop. Thomas, a young man, pleaded not guilty on a charge of stealing flannel singlets valued at £ 2 5s and belonging* to Alfred Hebu Caldwell, on June 21. Frederick William Harris, manager of Caldwell’s mercery shop, said that he had missed the singlets from where they had been placed near the shop doorway. The constable who had arrested Thomas produced a statement in which accused had admitted selling two of the singlets, saying that he had bought thorn from a man named Cosgrove. William Harold Cosgrove, the man referred to, who was serving three days’ imprisonment, having been convicted for drunkenness yesterday, stepped from the cells to the witness box to deny that he knew anything of the singlets. “You are a darned liar,” exclaimed Thomas. Chief-Detective Hammond described Thomas as one of a class that got free lodging at the City Mission and stole for their beer and cigarettes. The Rev. Jasper Calder said that he knew nothing of the young man save that he had recently come from Australia to look for work. “He is what I should call a mistaken Aussie,” he said. “His conduct at the mission has always been good.” Thomas was remanded for sentence until Friday so that the probation officer might investigate the case.