THE ROMANCE OF AN UMBRELLA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 1 September 1923, Page 7

THE ROMANCE OF AN UMBRELLA

It has come to be accepted as a. social axiom that a London alderman is proof against tho temptation to purloin a leg of mutton. But- we live in an age of dissillusionment, and it is impossible to say what proverb will go next. In Melbourne a few days ago a rich merchant, partner in a big softgoods warehouse, and 54 years of age, was sentenced to a week’s imprisonment for stealing an umbrella from the warehouse of a rival firm. And what was the misguided man’s excuse? Not that he had no umbrella of bis own, nor lacked the money to buy a hundred of them. In fact be was in the business and could import umbrellas by the thousand, but ho said he wanted this particular one for a present to his wife. This is what the romance which survived more, than 50 winters brought him to at last. Without going into the details of the case, it does seem strange that, imprisonment without the option should be deemed necessary to deter big Melbourne merchants in late life from going into each other’s warehouses and pilfering umbrellas to make presents to their wives. Tt is all very well for the punishment being made to fit the crime, hut when a man, under these circumstances, deliberately steals an umbrella instead of buying ft, there must be a kink somewhere in bis mentality. How many of life s moral tragedies arc due to the same cause, who knows? Of course, if umbrella thieves were to be let go unpunished, nobody’s umbrella- would be safe. But in a ease of this kind society would not take much risk hv trying the experiment of a lighter penalty than gaol, at any rate for the first offence. even though the doliqiiont did not commit, it, till bo bad lived for more than half a century.