A SAD STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2572, 5 January 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SAD STORY.

Tiik other day iit tho Marlhorousrh-il.iwt Police C'liirt .1 well-dressed, respectable looking , wimiiiu, of about fifty years of age, was charged by tho police with "disorderly conduct." Tho evidence wont to show that this, consisted of sleeping on a door.-tep only. The defendant (writes the London correspondent of » contemporary) admitted her "crime," and said that she had au only daughter, seventeen years of age, who twelve months ago had been decoyed over to Belgium under u pretext of being taken to a good situation. There she was ruined, and had found her way back to London, but, evidently ashamed to go home, she walked the streets of the West Knd at night, plying her wretched calling. The broken-heart' d mother was out night after night parading the cruel, cold streets, in the hopp of some night meeting with tho erring one and taking her homo. She was out the oilier morning until 3 o'clock, and being thoroughly weary with fatigue had sat down on a sheltering doorstep for a brief rest, when slio fell a.sleep. The intelliilfiiit " miniber of the foorco " had caught her in the heinous net, and had maiehed her off to t!ie police station, charging her with "dKorderly behaviour." What a. farce ! And the police magistrate evidently thought so, for he at once discharged tho woman, arid spoke .sharply to ihe policeman fur his cruelty to her. It whs stated that tho woman had independent means. It is a sad story—a broken-hearted mother searching tho streets for it runaway daughter, and then beiijg hauled oil' to a cold police cell as though she- were a criminal of the deepest dye. .Hut such are the phases of life in l.hi.s great metropolis.