FROM £l0,000 A YEAR TO PENURY

Evening Star, Issue 18137, 29 November 1922, Page 1

FROM £lo,ooo A YEAR TO PENURY

EXTRAORDINARY REVERSE OF FORTUNE. Frederick Hall Kirby,, a white-haired old gentleman eighty-loor years of age, described as a consulting engineer, stood in the dock at Westminster Police Court recently charged on remand 'with obtaining food and lodging to the extent of £8 10a by fraud and false pretences at an hotel in the vicinity of Victoria station. The defendant stayed at the hotel .from tho Bth to tho 18th of September without means, stating, it was aliened, that he was about to receive a sum of £2,000 from his lawyer, and also making reference to important positions held by his sons. When arrested all he possessed vi>—rfireo-half-pence, some pawn ticktfTs, lodsdnc-houso papers, and an old age pension form. Appearing for the accused, Mr Dalziel Fisher, solicitor, said he had .personally known Mr Kirby for over thirty years, and was aware that in his younger days, when he was engaged in India and built tho docks at Bombay and other work under Government, his income was not less than £IO,OCX) a year. The defendant had three sons in high positions, one of whom was a brigadier-general, a commanding officer of artillery in India, and another an engineer in charge of railways. The accused, who had also had a career in the city of London ns a consulting civil engineer, unfortunately got into the hands of company promoters and lost his largo fortune. Ho was now 7 partially blind, and there was no doubt that to a certain extent his mind was enfeebled, the idea of his former largo undertakings still possessing him. Ho had recently tolclyhim (Air Fisher) that (ho had some business going through by which ho was making £BO,OOO, and that he wanted £2,000 to carry it through. Inquiries made established the fact that there had been some negotiation, but that ho would get nothing. Mr Kirby was a man of the highest character, and his present position was a deplorable reverse or fortune. Air Francis (the magistrate) asked whether his well-to-do near relatives would do nothing. Air Fisher said the last thing one of them did was to send him a cheque for a paltry pound. The kindest thing that could bo done for the old man was to send him to the workhouse infirmary, and then perhaps the Guardians would take 'some action. There was a possibility of tho defendant’s admission to a well-known and important institution when a vacancy occurred. Defendant was willing now to go to the infirmary. Air Francis said ho would discharge him on a medical certificate produced as to feebleness of mimt, and ho could go to the infirmary.