”LEFT TO STARVE.”

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 19 December 1916, Page 2

”LEFT TO STARVE.”

SOLDIEE COMPLAINS OF OFFICIAL NEGLECT. “I came home because the authorities left my wife to starve, ’ ’ was the I startling defence offered by Hcnrv Batson, aged 42, a private in the Middlesex Eegiment, who was charged at Willcsden with being an absentee from his regiment. Batson told the court he had been .in the Army over a year. A few weeks ago when his wife went to the postoffice to draw her money, as usual, they told hen the book had been mislaid, and she would have to wait. She had made repeated applications for it, but without avail. She had also been to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ 'Association,, but they told her it was not a case for them. He came home on October 1 to see if he could get any money for his wife, as she was at the end of her resources, and stanvino-. The Magistrate : And have you got any money for her

The Soldier ; Only a few coppers. She has pawned all she has got and a neighbour has lent her a few things to pawn to get a little food.

The Magistrate said it was a remarkable ease but he had no alternative but to hand the prisoner over to an escort.

Batson: The police know my story is true.

The court missionary said that similar cases had been reported to him, and he would do his best to help the man’s wife.