A GIRL BUCCANEER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 63, 15 March 1915, Page 6

A GIRL BUCCANEER.

—_——— _ WHO PREYED ON NEWSBOYS. A girl of thirteen years, who had been allowed considerably more latitude than i is wise in the matter of visiting tbe j beaches by day and the pictures by night, recently conceived and carried out a daring form of piracy that proved j profitable to her while it lasted. She' started by intercepting small girls of her acquaintanceship, who had been sent messages with money, and by inducing the messengers to entrust her with the cash, with which she at once gaily decamped. Then she entered on a bolder campaign, her prey this time being the cute newspaper boys. She would approach a boy with half a crown, which the previous raids had provided her with, and ask for a paper, still holding the half crown in one hand while the I newsboy counted the 2/5 change with the other, and at once darting away, with the half crown and the change, I into the crowd when the last penny jingled into her palm. She occasionally varied the manoeuvre by knocking up a; newsboy's hand as he was picking over a-handful of money for change, diving for the silver plum in the shower of change, and taking to her heels while the boy was tied to the spot by anxiety about the rest of his scattered cash. Eventually this female buccaneer, who had thus stripped small girls and boy« of 13/, was dropped on by a policeman, and she came before Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., this morning, and owned up to seven such thefts.

The Juvenile Probation Officer (Mr. F. S. Snell) stated that the girl's parents were respectable people with a large family, and though the control of this girl had been unwisely light 6he had not hitherto shown any bad characteristics. It was the mother's intention to take the whole family with her to Norfolk Island, where the father had some property.

The girl was formally committed to the Auckland Industrial School, with a provision that she should be allowed probation in the event of the mother carrying out her intention of taking the family to Norfolk Island. It was also ordered that the girl's father should refund the 13/ stolen and 6/ costs.