MAGISTRATE’S SPLENDID FAILURE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 15 July 1925, Page 3

MAGISTRATE’S SPLENDID FAILURE

11.1. RAID KINDNESS

No magistrate ita.s groat or faith iii iiunian nature thaji Mr J. .A. R. Cairns, tt:;' ii ,!Iy philosopher who sits at the Tlukuw Court- in Those who warm sympathy and help. Mr Cairns recently toll! a conference

of probation officers about eight young offenders whom he took into service at his home in a pretty Surrey iane.

Alas for his high hopes ! Not one of the eight turned out- the success which, according to the story books, they should have done. Indeed, in one case the befriended youth robbed his benefactor and finished

up in gaol. Of the remaining seven some were pilferers ; others shindy could not rise to the standard of cleanlines and conduct ejected.

The one who from his heredity .and enviteminent should have turned out best did worst," Mr Cairns told the | probation officers, "and finished up in [ Wadsworth I’t ise.n.

Mr and Mrs Cairns have tested the j theory of kindness and help a 1: their ! lives, and. although they have been ill- j rewarded, there are none move warm- i ly disposed to the weak than they.

Tears ago they took into- their service a young woman who had hern accused of the murder of her child.

This, the very first experiment of the land, was a failure. No property was' secure in the Cairns household. Then, with the war well advanced, and the servant problem at its height, came the procession of eight youths who had erred, and who had been trained for domestic service in a remand home. The boy of whom Mr Cairns told the nrobntien officers is the sen of a City bank manager, lie has ha ( | more advantages than the average youth in ti well-to-do home. 11 is manners and deportment, were beyond reproach, lie valeted Mr Cairns, and sieved at table, in the most faultless style. Then one day he disappeared. So did Mr Cairns' goo,| bicycle. Ihi.v .and bicycle wetv found at Worthing, the former trying to dispose of

tin' latter for hatd cash. Since so unceremoniously leaving tho establishment of Mr Cairns, he had committed other offences, and for these lie was sent to gaol for six months.

Mrs Cairns had missed articles of si* ver, including a dish, a present from a member of the Rnval Family, but the full extent of her loss was not revealed until the boy wrote from prison ennui crating articles worth L’”o winch lie had taken. - jjftjj

liven cheques intended for Mr Ca-ru-bad gene by the way. although this son of a hank manager had. somehow or Other, failed to get them cashed. He duly cattle out of gaol, and called on Airs Cairns to know if he was to be prosecuted for the theft of the silver, hut this was considered wiped out with his six months* sentence.