A CANTING HUMBUG.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 89, 21 May 1914, Page 3

A CANTING HUMBUG.

GETS THREE : MONTHS HAEI>. Describing the prisoner as "a canting humbug,'' the West Ham magistrate recently passed sentence of three months' imprisonment on Charles' Robert Marshall,, forty-one,,painter, of Grange Rood, Plaistow. Marshall was charged on a warrant with endeavouring to procure charitable contributions by 'fraud from Mr Ernest Allen, a solicitor, of Eastcheap, BG( ..... ...■_,. ■>../.;....... ...,,.. , v , Mr Allen said that in January, 1911, he received an appeal on behalf of a committee collecting funds for the -relief of cases of extreme poverty in West Ham. . . f He sent £2 with a request for details of the case on which the money was expended. Some information was sent, and three months later, at his private address at Sutton, in Surrey, he received a letter from Marshall, in which he said he had been the recipient of the £2, and asked for more assistance. Since then the man had written many times, had called the witness on ,the telephone and once entered his.private room unannounced. One letter rah: — "At this stage of our degraded existence a drama of horrible misery is forced upon us. People remain in their silent inanimate misery, gazing over the rails of their environment at those who throw them bones. The curse of living is upon them, and the joy of the wilds of wonder and beauty of this wealthy earth is for ever and ever denied them. Will you try and understand us f Ask me to dinner! I will entertain you well! lam serious. Properly speaking, I should be among the middle classes as a natural right, and will repay you if you will only help me now." Another letter in an envelope marked "Important and Personal" began: "It is imperative that you should read my letters." Mr. Allen added that he had sent the prisoner hot leas than £lO a year, and Mrs Allen had also sent money and clothing. The Rev. M. Davidson, of St. Matthew's, Canning Town, said complaints had been received from different parts of the country. He had never known Marshall to do any/work. The Clerk: While he was getting this money from Mr Allen he has been charged here with drunkenness. Mr Gillespie (to the prisoner): Tou are a canting humbug and not entitled to the slightest sympathy. I shall give you all I can —that is three months hard labour. i