Woman Found Drunk

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 49, 28 February 1938, Page 2

Woman Found Drunk

BAD EXAMPLE TO CHILDREN From Our Own CorresDondent. HASTINGS, Feb. 26. ( "We will try this course, but if it foes not give satisfaction then it will <nean that yo u will have to be put away i*or a long time, for you are not setting a good example to your children, and we cannot have this kind of behaviour in our midst,” said Messrs F. C. Wilkin-? son and A. J. C. Runciman, J.P.’s, at the Hastings Police Court this morning, when passing sentence upon a married woman. Annie Elizabeth Collins. The defendant had pleaded guilty to being found drunk, and also to having used indecent language within the hearing of passer;s-by in Riverslea road, and she was ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months. She was further ordered to take out a prohibition order. ‘‘‘l suppose I am guilty, but I don’t remember anything about it?” said the defendant when asked to plead. Senior-Sergeant G. Slvyer said that the woman was addicted to drink and when she became the worse for liquor she made a general nuisance of herself. This was not tfie first occasion that she had been before the Court, and in 1931 she Bad served a month’s imprisonment for a similar offence. “She is a married woman with five or six children, the youngest being six months.” he said, “and 1 Have given much thought to the question of whether I would be justified, under the circumstances, in asking that she Ufe put away for some long time. This kind of. thing is not doing the children any good. If there is any more of it I will feel compelled to ask the Welfare Officer to take the children away.”