FORTUNE’S CHANGE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1934, Page 5

FORTUNE’S CHANGE

AFFLUENCE to poverty SYDNEY, June 12. Frederick Keogh, who in 1927 was earning £BSO a- year as Commissioner of Stamp Duties i'll Brisbane, was charged in a Melbourne Police Count this week with vagrancy. He said that he wax now earning 7s or 8d a day by selling bootlaces in the streets. He sent £1 a week to his wife and family in Queensland. He had lost liis position because of drink, and since then had had assistance from friends in Melbourne and Queensland.

The police said that Keojgh was usually to be seen in Bourke Street ill a “muddled” condition from drink.

Keogh, who asked for a chance to go to Sydney, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment, but wais released on entering into a bond to : be of good 'behaviour for 12 months.

Keogh once owned a home on Higligate Hill, Brisbane, worth £2OO. Now he lives in a shed behind a “dive” in , Little .Lonsdale Street, one of the moat unsavoury quarters in Melborune. Yet lie still can raise a smile and see better • times ahead. Forly-foui* years of age, more than 6ft in height, and squareshouldered Keogh, a- qualified accountant, is well-spoken and well-read. “This business of selling laces is getting me down, however,” he said, in ah interview after his appearance in Court. “I find myself thinking that I am doing great business when I make a couple of shillings. If a stranger is friendly to me, I am uplifted for the rest of the day. When a man is down, old friendships are wortlT nothing, and we get all the pleasant surprises from strangers.”