LIVING BY PIRACY

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 32, 6 August 1921, Page 9

LIVING BY PIRACY

A family which has earned some notoriety in the Auckland district has just been broken up by six members being committed to the Auckland Receiving Home. In the family there: were fourteen, all illegitimate. .The father had been resident, in New Zealand for thirty years, and the mother came here from Australia thirty-seven years ago. She was a quarter Australian aboriginal, a quarter Irish, and half Maori. Her father's record was not stainless. None of the children conld read or write, and only two had attended school. The six committed to the home range in ages from two to twelve. Two of the members not committed were recently in gaol. The whole family had been living in the ti-tree near the Wairoa River, and gaining a livelihood, by a campaign of thefts from goods lying at a nearby wharf. The plunder collected included goods of all kinds, from silk blouses and other clothing to a bicycle, petrol, a ship's lights, and a launch anchor. An official report on the case shows that members of the family have not paid anything for goods for years, but have cheerfully followed a career of piracy on the Wairoa River.