"THE OLD STORY"

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 54, 6 March 1922, Page 8

"THE OLD STORY"

YOUNG MAN CONVICTED 0?

THEFT.,

"It's the old story. A man is found with some goods, and he tells the police tiiat he got them from some person in the street. I hear that story every day." So said Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court to-day, when a young man named Herbert Mercer was charged with the theft of various articles of lady's underclothing, valued at £4 15s, the property of Enid Allison Elder. The police case, as outlined by SubInspector M'Namara, was that the accused had paid a visit to the rear portion of a private hospital in Abel Smithstreet in the early hours of Ist March, and had removed the articles from the clothes-line. Later lie was accosted by Constable Buchanan, and during a conversation with the guardian of the law he had dropped a parcel from under his coat. When pressed for an explanation, he had stated that he had received the goods from a woman named Madge, whom he had met outside the Brunswick Hotel. On behalf of the accused, Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell urged that the statement madel by the accused gave a true account of his movements on thesnight in question. Mercer had not been convicted of dishonesty previously. He came, of a very respectable and wealthy family in the South Island. Counsel'admitted that accused had been rather a fool as far as drink was conoerned. The accused gave evidence on his own behalf, but experienced some difficulty in fixing the time at which he had received the articles from " Madge." " The accused is convicted and fined £5, in default one month in gaol," was tile Magistrate's decision.