SPOILT YOUTH SENT TO ARCTIC

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20911, 16 September 1939, Page 14 (Supplement)

SPOILT YOUTH SENT TO ARCTIC

Saved from Gaol by Old Friend

Instead of a possible term of hard labour within prison walls. 25-year-old Clarence Leigh, of Pendleton, Salford. has been given his freedom and the chance to make good by many months of real hard labour aboard a whaling ship in the Arctic. Leigh, who as a boy was spoiled by a doting mother, was saved from prison by the plea of Mr George Arrowsmith, a" Pendleton garage proprietor, who afterwards told the News of the World that he was a firm believer m the maxim that “ there is a little good in the worst of us.” Before the Salford Hecorder Leigh, pleaded guilty to breaking into a wine shop and stealing two bottles of whisky, valued at 255. He was stated to have a long list of previous convictions in this country and in Canada, to have been deported from Gan-

ada as an undesirable person, and to be a liar who easily turned to crime. Explaining that he had known Leigh from his childhood days. Mr Arrowsmith said to the Recorder: “ I have been able to get him a berth on a whaling ship. It will lake hirn to the Arctic regions for eight months and the work is hard, but I think it will give him an opportunity to find his manhood and enable him to become a useful member of the j community instead of a burden on the | State.” ■ Binding Leigh over until the ship j sails in September, the Recorder, Mr i A. M. Langdon, ordered Leigh to rc- : port to the police on his return, addiing: “ If all goes well you can start : a new and happy life.” j “ Can’t Sail Too Boon ” j At Mr Arrows mi tih’s garage, where

Leigh will be found work until the whaling ship puts to sea, he 1*5,1 a a pressman that he was deeply grateful to Mr Arrowsmith for his intervention. " The ship can't sail too soon for me,” he said, " and I am really looking forward to the months 1 shall spend on her in the Arctic." -He has no illusions about the gruelling conditions under which men of the whalers have to work, and he is glad of the opportunity that has come his way. •• ] pleaded for and helped Leigh because of the anxiety which he had caused his family, who are very respectable people," Mr Arrowsmith explained. “ His brothers and sisters were gTown up when he was born, and he was idolised, and probably ruined by the affection lavished upon him. His mother died when be was 11 years A age, and he was orphaned soon after that. •• This whaler trip will do him good. During the months that he is in .the Arctic he will have neither the time, nor the opportunity to get into trouble. “ 1 have little doubt that my expression of hope to the Recorder that :t would make a man of Leigh will be fulfilled.”