MISCHIEVOUS BOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 11, 12 January 1918, Page 5

MISCHIEVOUS BOYS.

• I -- CAUSE VERY GREAT DAMAGE. PLAYLNG AMONG TOMBSTONES. A small boy of seven years came before Mr. F. V. Frazex," SJL, at the Juvenile Court this morning on a charge of having done £60 worth of damage at Parkinson's monumental-work yard in Victoria Street on a recent Sunday. It was explained that the damage was in reality done by four small boys, but 'three of them were just under the age of seven years, and were consequently not amenable to the criminal law. The circumstances gathered from a cross-ex-amination of three of the hoys concerned were that the four hoys went to play among the -tombstones in the yard on Sunday, December 9, and were seized of the spirit of mischief. One vonngsteT found that he conld lift a small marble cross which was standing loosely on a pedestal in the yard. He lifted" it and dropped it on the ground, and nothing happened. He tried again, and this time one of the arms of the cross broke off. The broken piece was thrown away, said the lads started an orgy of mischief. They pushed over a. pile of marble slab* and pedestals, so chipping them that the stones, which would have to be re-cut to smaller sizes in order to cut out the blemishes, that their value was deteriorated by over £20 The boys found a pot of black paint, and painted a number of the marble tombstones with thfe. OB was found and poured into the letterbox of the office door and on tombstones, and three tins of benzine were holed with a pointed hammer, so that tbe benzine ran out over the yard. The one boy who came before the Court had been already chastised at home, and he and the others were orought' before the magistrate ana warned to keep away fn future from and other such places, while the charge against the one lad was adjourned for six months. His Worship remarked that any action respecting the damage would have to be taken in the civil court.