LURE OF THE SEA.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 346, 29 January 1937, Page 7

LURE OF THE SEA.

Man Who Had To Get Work Inland. Extraordinary circumstances were connected with a Placement Officer’s search for and location of employment for a man whoso need was particularly urgent. This man’s difficulty was that, though perfectly normal under ordinary conditions, the sight of a boat or a launch at anchor produced in him an irresistible desire to board the craft and sail away. This unfortunate tendency toward pelagic kleptomania eventually led to his seizing a small open and starting off on a voyage to Australia. Te was intercepted and had to pay the penalty for his surrender to his nautical prge. A farther result was the loss of his employment, and he turned to the local placement officer for advice. It was realised that safety for him lay in getting away from the sea, and the temptation that he found so very hard to resist. Inquiries were then made in inland towns, and ultimately an employer to whom the facts of the case were explained consented to give the man a trial. Today he appears to have got free from his deaded obsession, and become an eager, normal-minded citizen—a potential derelict whose moral fibre has been strengthened and his selfrespect restored through the agency of the Placement Service and a humane employer.