A BAD BEGINNING.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12731, 18 February 1907, Page 6

A BAD BEGINNING.

Several boys, or youths, with ch&r* acters that might be fittingly attached to hardened felons, have boon before Mr Justice Backhouse at the Sydney Quarter Sessions, but probahly the'wont esse of "a bad lot" was that of a youth of 19 years, who was convicted last week of breaking, entering, and stealing. The police told something of his record (says the "Telegraph"), by which it appeared that he had already served three sontencea—two dayß' hand labour in 1903 for throwing stones, one month's hard labour in 1905 for having supposedly stolen property, and tno months' hard labour during the same year for vagrancy. In addition, said the polio©, he waa one of «. gang of juvenile housebreakers, wh6 'hadj ootamitted about 30 robberies in 1 Bal n.ain; but although moat of the gang had been convicted for their offences, this young gentleman had always managed to escape. At rare intervals he worked for a week, or perhaps a little longer, but at the last plaoe at which he had been •employed—an hotel—he got into a quarrel with the proprietor, aud departed. When he had gone it waa fdund that tho proprietor's horse had been stabbed, and one of the house servants was suffering from what was suspected to be poison administered- by tho villainous youth. At odd times he employed himself in teaching the young'store of Balmain immoral habits, and tho final word of tho polico was that he was as bad and aa vicious as he could lie. His Honour passed a sentence of two yoars' imprisonment.