MAN OF 109

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 April 1940, Page 2

MAN OF 109

CONVICTED OF BEGGING THREE OFFERS TO PAY FINE. Offers to pay a fine imposed on | Phillip Prins, a Hottentot, aged 109, | have been made by two women in: Johannesburg and by Mr Wilfred Knight, a city councillor of Durban. Prins was fined £5 or three months hard labour by a Johannesburg magistrate for begging. He had several previous convictions. A woman who telephoned an official at the Magistrates’ Courts stated that she intended going to the Fort, where Prins was taken, to pay the fine. She| contended that the man was not a criminal as he was first convicted at the age of 107. A second woman later informed court > ofl’tcials that her society intended offering the amount of the line and then applying to the Native Affairs Department or soihe other competent body to have Prins placed in a home. Her society was prepared, if necessary, to contribute towards his maintenance. Mi’. Knight, of Durban, in forwarding a cheque for £5 to a Durban newspaper for transmission to Johannesburg. said that a state of affairs which allowed so old a man lo bo homeless needed attention. Prins’s last conviction was on November 11, 1939. when he was lined £3 or two months, for begging, but the sentence was suspended for two years. Legally, it could now come into operation after the latest line had been paid, or the term of imprisonment served. Tho nature of the hard labour Prins would be called on to perform would, it is stated, be determined by his physical condition, and, if necessary, a ' medical report.