A TURK'S 'SPIRITUAL PRIDE

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 241, 1 July 1915, Page 3

A TURK'S 'SPIRITUAL PRIDE

A well-dressed young man, .Julius Joseph Davidson, describing himself as a British subject, of Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Bond, was charged at Bow Street recently with tampering with two passports issued to him by the Foreign Office. Mr. It. D. Muir said that at one time the prisoner held a passport granted to him in India. On February 20 he obtained another passport at the Foreign Office on a declaration that he was born in Madras. Some days later he returned with the passport partially burnt, and said he had had an accident with it. The burnt portion was that reserved for recording the journeys made by the holder in foreign countries.

On the prisoner’s verbal application a new passport was issued to him on March 2. A few days ago he again returned, and said he had had an accident with his new passport, a portion of which had been torn off, including the space for recording journeys. In the interval between the issuing of the first and second passport the prisoner had changed his name by deed p' 1 from Davidsen to David, but made no mention of it at the Foreign Office. He was handed over to Scotland Yard. To Detective-Sergeant Jeffery, who arrested him, prisoner said: "I did not like to bo called an Indian, and I tried to rub out the last syllable of my name. I found it scratched the paper, so I tore it off. I was born in India, but I consider myself a Frenchman, although I suppose I am a British subject.”

In the witness-box, prisoner said lie came to London from India at the age of two, was adopted by an aunt at Hampstead until he was ten, was then taken to France, and subsequently went to India, where he had a large stationery business.

But at the 'conclusion of his examination he said he wished to tell the whole truth —he was born in Mesopotamia, and resided with his parents there until he was ten.

Mr. H. S. Martin, of the Foreign Office, remarked that, according to that statement, prisoner appeared to be a Turkish subject. Mr. Muir: What did you want these passports for? —Spiritual pride, that is all. The magistrate, as a deterrent to others, passed a sentence of throe months’ imprisonmnt in the second division.