A MISSING SUIT OF CLOTHES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15922, 7 May 1912, Page 4

A MISSING SUIT OF CLOTHES.

AN EX-PATIENT IN TROUBLE. [Pee Press Association.] AUCKLAND, May 6.

Thomas M’Glynn on Friday was convicted at tho Police Court of having been disorderly when drunk at Auckland Hospital. Ha explained that he had gone back for clothes that he had worn when he went into hospital as a patient, and which could not be found when ho received his discharge. At midnight on Saturday ho turned up again, with one arm in a sling and an expression of agony on his face, the result of a fall, he said. Tho sister in charge soon discovered that the alleged injury was merely a fraud, whereupon M’Glynn smiled benignly and presented a card on which was written :—“ I want my clothes, and I won’t bo happy till .1 get them.” Ho was told that his clothes could not be found, but he argued and argued and persisted, till the police were telephoned for, and this morning he made his second bow to the Police Court Bench, his introduction this time being a charge that he was a rogue and a vagabond,, in that lie had been found by night on the premises of the Auckland Hospital Board. Sergeant Mackinnon represented the impropriety of having scenes created at a place like the hospital, and called evidence in which it was suggested that accused’s mental balance was somewhat tilted.

Then M’Glynn quietly went over tlie old ground of the loss of his clothes. He went into the hospital, he said, the possessor of a suit of clothes three weeks of age, the usual underclothing, and accessories of attire for head and feet, in addition to some papers of value to him. When the time came for his discharge, all that could be found of his possessions were a pair of hoots, a shirt, and “ a cony of old Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat.” “I don't know if that would cover my nakedness,” remarked the prisoner in a passing reference to the literary classic.

M’Glynn .stated that things in the institution wore not what one would expect to find in “ God’s Own Country.” Other patients had lost their clothes, and lie knew of two men who had gone out of the hospital bare-head-ecT, and two women who had left without frocks because their clothes could not be found. He suggested that people other than those at the hospital had access to the property cupboard, and remarked that the sister in charge had repudiated responsibility because there were no keys to the locks. Personally, lie had been accommodated with the loan of clothes, but he had no wish to wear dead men’s clothes. He stated that he had interviewed members of the Hoard, and had been told that a special inquiry would he made into the matter. “ And into my state of mind, I suwnose,” he added.

He was riaht this time, for the Bench adjourned the oaso for a week, during which time M’Glvnn was ordered to be detained for medical observation.