THEFTS FROM LETTERS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 116, 19 May 1906, Page 1

THEFTS FROM LETTERS.

NO PROBATION FOR POST

OFFICE THIEVES

Mr Justice Edwards sat in Wellington on Tuesday, for the purpose of passing sentence upon prisoners who had pleaded guilty at the lower courts to the charges preferred against them. Tho first person presented was Sydney Warren Trowoof Vosper. His Honour said it was absolutely essential for the Avell-being of the community that the Post Oflice .should be inviolate. Those persons who wanted to steal ii'i'ist select some oilier .service than that of His Majesty's Postal Department in New Zoaln'd. That rule had been laid down long ago , and every person in the Post-office ought to know it If they did not know it, he, sitting on that bench, wished to say that it was the duty of all postmasters to see that they did. No doubt it Avas a dangerous thing to send a boy like the prisoner to prison; but probably it would do him good. His Honor did not propose to give him a term of imprisonment for the sake of doing him good, but for the sake of example, so that people might with every confidence place their letters in the Postoffice. These thefts of letters, as had been explained over and over again, were very different from the stealing of anything else. Anyone avlio stole a letter might cause ruin and misery far beyond what might be contemplated at the time. That was not the case here; but it Avas impossible to differentiate botAveen such cases. The postal service in this colony ought to be honestly carried on, and should be, at all events, as far as it lay in his poAver to carry out that object. He would take into consideration the prisoner's youth. From a long experience of Mr Garvey (the Gaoler), His Honor AVas satisfied that the prisoner would be kept apart as far as Avas possible from contaminating influences. Prisoner Avould be sentenced to imprisonment for three calendar months.