[PRESS ASSOCIATION.] SCENE AT A HOSPITAL

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 108, 7 May 1912, Page 3

[PRESS ASSOCIATION.] SCENE AT A HOSPITAL

EX-PATIENT AND HIS CLOTHES. AUCKLAND, 6th May. On Friday, Thomas M'Glynn was convicted at tho Police Couit of having been disorderly and drunk at the Auckland Hospital. He explained that he had gone back for certain clothes that he had worn when he went into the hospital as a patient, and which could not be found when he received his discharge. At midnight on Saturday he had turned up again with one arm in a sling and an expression of agony on his face — the result of i\ fall, he said. The sister in charge soon discovered that the alleged injury was merely v fraud, whereupon M'Glynn smiled benignly, and presented a card, on which was written, "I want my clothes, and I won't be happy till I get thorn." He was told that his clothes could not be found, but he argued and argued, and persisted til! tho police were telephoned for, and, this morning, he made his second bow to the Police CourtBench, his introduction this time being st charge tliat he was a. rogue and a vagabond, in that he had been found by night on the premises of the Auckland Hospital Board. Sergeant MacKinnon commented on tho impropriety of having scenes created at n place liko the hospital, and called evidence in which it was suggested that accused*, mental balance- wm, somewhat tilted. Then M'Glynn quietly went over tht old ground of the loss ot his clothes. He went into the hospital, ho said, the pos6esisoi of a suit Lhiee weeks of age, the usual underclothing, and accessories of attire tor head and feet, in addition

to some papers of value to him. When the time came for his discharge, all that could be found of his possessions were a pair of boots, a shirt, and "a copy of old Omar Khayyam's 'Rubaiyet.' " "I don't know if that would cover my nakedness," remarked the prisoner in passing reference to the literary classic. M'Glynn also stated that things in the institution were not what one would expect to find in "God's own country." Other patients had lost their clothes, and he knew of two men who had gone out of the hospital bareheaded, and two women who had left without frocks because their clothes could not be found. He suggested that peoplo other than those at the hospital had access to the property cupboard, and remarked that "the sister in charge had repudiated responsibility, because- thcie were no keys to the locks." Personally ho had been accommodated with the loan of clothes, but he had no wish to wear dead men's clothes. He also stated that he had interviewed members of the board, and had been, told that a special enquiry would be made into the matter, "and into my state of mind, I suppose," he added. He was right this time, for the Bench adjourned the case for a week, during which time M'Glynn was ordered to be detained for medical observation.