AN OPERATION WOULD MAKE HIM HONEST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9740, 4 March 1914, Page 7

AN OPERATION WOULD MAKE HIM HONEST.

PRISONER'S REMARKABLE PLEA CPeb Pbkbß Association.) AUCKLAND, March 2. A one thousand-dollar operation was hold by a prisoner at the Supreme Court this afternoon to be a barrier between himself and the pure honest life he led up till seven years ago. Prisoner was a young man named Evelyn Vine Kitson, who pleaded guilty to having obtained money by false pretences at Hamilton and attempted suicide at Wellington. When asked if he had anything to say, he made a rambling statement about being sorry for his career of crime, and explained how hard it was to reform. His first lapse was due to quixotic action, and lie had become hardened as a result of his incarceration in gaol, which crushed all refinement and fine feeling in a man, and there was absolutely nothing for intellect to feed on. The prisoner said he had tried to load a good life in Tahiti, but there they had reduced persecution to a fine art. When lie arrived in Wellington he heard that the police were after him. Rather than stand in the felon's dock again, a scorn for all men, he determined to end his life, and nearly did so. Kitson said the cause of his trouble could be removed by an operation which he could not afford. He had a bone pressing on his brain, and if it was removed ho would bo all right again. His earlier - life had not been clouded with sin. Prisoner handed up a letter to the Bench. In answer to tho Judge, Kitson admitted having.been convicted in New South Wales, Queensland, and other places of false pretences, theft, forgery, and attempted suicide. His Honour said the sentence of the Court would be that prisoner would be sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, and be declared a habitual crimial. The letter prisoner had handed up would be placed before the gaol surgeon, who was an able man, and prisoner would be examined to see if his story about a bone pressing on his brain was correct. If such an operation as alleged was necessary it might have considerable influenoe on his future.