COURT SCENES

Hokitika Guardian, 11 August 1928, Page 4

COURT SCENES

LONDON, June 28

Visitors to London who delight in distributing luncheons to the overfed pigeons outside St. Paul’s Cathedral may have noticed an old, grey-haired man with a tremulous mouth who sells paper bags of maize. I say “may” advisedly, because this old man, whose name is George Podmore, has spent much of Ills long life -between prison and St. Paul’s. As a supplier of pigeon food George, despite his long experience, is only in the amateur class, but as a smasher of windows lie is in the very first rank of a specialised undertaking.

No fewer than 221 convictions have been recorded against George, mostly for breaking things. When bo was taken to Tower Bridge police station for walking away with a suit-ease lie had taken from n shop the local police took his finger prints and sent them to Scotland Yard.

“Oh, yes,” replied Scotland Yard. “Good old George, the wilful damager; 221 convictions and most of them on the target.” “Incredible,” observed the Tower Bridge police. “Are you sure it is 221?” “Incredible, nothing,” retorted Scotland Yard. “You can do a lot in 73 years.’ ’ Afr Tassell. the magistrate, looked at old George with more interest than sorrow. “You have an expensive hobby,” ho remarked. “Why don’t you stick to pigeons'?” Old George, who was sent down for three months’ hard labour, scratched his grey head and admitted that he had only two interests in life—pigeons and window-panes. George ought not to he in gaol ; his job is obviously a breeder of pigeons in the Crystal Palace.

“Bad company corrupts good manners,”' is one of the old copybook maxims over which we now smile cynically, not because of the platitude but because wo in these enlightened days think wo are far superior to copperplate conventions written in the austere Victorian manner.

But tho Victorians were right, as the old philosophers were right. Rotten apples will always corrupt a good apple, but one sound apple cannot rnako rotten apples good. Frank is a good boy. He looks a good boy, and the testimony of liis mother, which might be prejudiced, was backed up by Detective-Sergeant Rosie, who was quite impartial. Frank got out of work, and the idle young hooligans in the district who were living on the dole taunted him with cowardice because lie could not get money without working. So he stole a bicycle, sold it at Brixton for IDs, and then gave himself and the 10s up to the police. “I was to lilame,” sobbed the mother. “I was always at him for being out of work.” “Nonsense,” said the magistrate. “It Is a case of bad companions. Look at your mother, boy; go home with her and behave yourself in future.”

Youth’s greatest danger is youth. The boy who loses his job may easily loso his character, because at the street corner lie in wait the young devils and the dole who do more harm in a week than the police can repair in a year.

A dozen youths were fined for gambling on Sunday afternoon with coins, dice, and cards. One game of “hanker” was played on the windowsill of a citizen who never permits cards in his house.

Tho magistrate was severe on. all tho youths for wasting their time and their money, but he ought to Have been especially severe on Alfred, who callously wore a purple tie with pink spots. I don’t know where Alfred got that tie but the place certainly should be raided.

Despite his name, Henry Whittle is a Scandinavian sailor, a handsome, jolly, blue-eyed sailor, who, through an interpreter, cheerfully admitted that he liked London. Politely ho had taken off liis hat to a tramway car and incidentally held up the traffic. Chivalrously he had taken a baby from a fried-fish shop when its mother was not looking, and had sung it to sleep and by that time the mother was i-aging frantically. Fined 10s, Henry Whittle smiled broadly and repeated that he liked London. ****** Life in the jungle is not more fierce than it is in the mean streets of Shoreditch. A little woman entered the witness-: box holding a handkerchief to her loft j eye. “I had a row with a man and his j wife, and of course he hit me in the j oyo and of course I shall have to go to J the hospital, and of course she was really to blame. Of course the magistrate signed warrant. ***** An old mother complained about her 30 years old son because he would persist in pulling down the blinds in the front room. “I don’t want him in the house,” she waited, “but he will force his way in, and the first thing he does is to pull down the blinds. And everybody in the street thinks I’m dead. It isn’t decent.” ***** A gay Lothario of 80 stammered and quavered a grievance against a woman with whom he had lived for 40 years. “She has taken my home and my furniture,” he sobbed, “and she has turned me out to live in the workhouse.” “Whose name is in the rent book?” asked the magistrate. “Hers,” morticed the old man. “She has got everything, and now she has turned me out.” Quite the modern TQych, that; the

betrayed man scorned and ruined and left to live on charity. *****

Another little domestic puzzle that solves itself at Shoreditch. A husband lost his temper because his wife selected another man to be the father of her next child.

For smacking his wife’s face the husband was bound over, the wife was taken to a maternity hospital and the other man is doing as well as can be expected. Simple!