BORN TO TROUBLE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 56, 7 March 1914, Page 16

BORN TO TROUBLE

(FROM Otm OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SYDNEY, 21st February. Man, we know, is bom to -trouble ; but we should bo thankful that the troubles that some people are born to do .not. come to us all in the same full measure. If it > were otherwise, (* ( life would certainly not be worth the living. Many New Zealanders will femember an incident of twenty years ago, when two mien named Caffrey and Perm, aftej murdering a settler named Taylor on Great ißatrier Island, -near Auckland, secured » boat and set out on one of the most sensational t voyages ever attempted, finally arriving after many days' of > constant peril at the historic townfthip of Port Macquarie, in New South Wales. 'And with them they brought a woman. Grace Palftief. The story ■ hne often been told— it. is, indeed, the subject of one of the utories of the late Louis :Becke, who used' to live at Port Macquarie—"how the three were arrested 660 A 'after their landing, and how the men were convicted and executed, mainly on the evidence of the woman. It was iold occe again at the Central Police Coort, Sydney, on Thursday, when a •woman, with fiad and haggard features, appeared to answer a. charge of having insufficient means of support. Her name was Grace Palmer, Hers was a face, and hers a- etqry, that men and women might well grieve over. Here, if ever there was one, was a woman whose life, as the prosecuting sergeant put it, had been full of troubles. She has been "known" to the police for the last IS or 20 yeafe. The sergeant told the old atofy to the Magi/strate, "Oh, you needn't tell it all again," cried the woman, as. the bitter memories of the past crowded upon het. "She seems to be one of those unfortunate creatures who are better in gaol th»n out of it," commented the Magistrate, and he sentenced her to six months' imprisonment.