Shop Lifting and Assault

Northland Age, Volume IX, Issue 68, 4 June 1940, Page 3

Shop Lifting and Assault

Two Maori Women Before Court Two Maori women appeared before the Kaitaia Court this morning on Charges of shoplifting and assault respectively. Messrs. J. T. B. Taaffe and W. H. Atkins, Js.P., presided. Unaike Simeon was charged with stealing clothing valued at £3 17/6

from Mrs. Vazey’s shop in Commerce Street. Accused pleaded guilty. The police stated that on May 23, accused went into the shop and asked to be allowed to have a look round. Later she was seen to leave the shop with a suspicious bulge under her overcoat and on being accosted by one of the assistants admitted having taken the goods. She was taken back to the shop and the police were called. Defendant was a married woman only 19 years of age. She had two young children, the eldest being only two years. The family was in very poor circumstances as the husband was out of work. This was her first appearance before the Court. Warning accused of the seriousness of the crime, Mr. Taaffe pointed out that only on the previous day a man had been imprisoned for five weeks on a similar charge. But for the fact that Mrs. Simeon had two young children to be considered, she would also have been severely dealt with. She would be convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months. Mr. Taaffe pointed out the exact implications of this sentence and said he hoped this would be a lesson to her. An order was made for restitution of property to Mrs. Vazey. Lost Her Temper Also pleading guilty, Maria Penewi appeared on a charge of assaulting, on May 24, Christina Parore, a native school teacher. Sergeant Simister said that accused had only re- I turned to the district the day previous to the assault and had heard that certain reports about her had been spread by Miss Parore. She had accosted Miss Parore and knocked her

down. As a result of the encounter, Miss Parore had had to be brought into Kaitaia from Whangape to receive medical attention. Defendant was a single woman living at home with her parents. “This is the first time since I have been in Kaitaia that there has been a case of assault by a woman before this Court, and this was assault of a serious nature,” concluded Sergeant Simister. “It is something of which you should be ashamed,” Mr. Taaffe told defendant. However the Court was disposed to show some leniency to her as she had no previous convictions and this appeared to be nothing further than a “vile outbreak of temper.” She was warned in the most severe way of what measures would be taken if such an offence were to recur. Penewi was convicted and ordered to come up within 12 months if called upon, also to meet the medical and other expenses of complainant.

A cat taken form Doncaster to London disappeared a few days after its arrival. Two and a half months afterwards it walked into its old home at Doncaster, 170 miles from London. ☆ -ft ☆ Concentrate all your thoughts on the work at hand; the sun’s rays do not burn until they are brought to a focus. ☆ ☆ ☆ A London business firm now gives an alternative address on its letter paper, to be used only “if London is rendered uninhabitable.” •fr * “The despotism of custom is everywhei’e the standing hinderance to human advancement.”—John Stuart Mill. * ☆ ☆ “When a man climbs upon a fence to peer into his neighbour’s yard and pick flaws therein, then is a good time for him to look backward.” —Wingate. * ☆ * A Twickenham girl was awarded £250 damages for a three-inch scar in her cheek, “very disfiguring for a girl of her good looks,” said the judge.

Ail English firm is marketing a blanket made of paper. * -fr * Soap metal handed to the authorities in Paris for munitions included six German steel helmets souvenirs of the last war. The owner told the collector “to send them back " as shells.” ☆ ☆ ☆ St. Paul’s Cathedral in London cost £4,000,000 to build, of which only £BO,OOO was raised by public subscription. The rest came from a tax on coal entering London from Newcastle. * * tr A German air-sergeant, brought down while flying over Holland, was allowed to vist Germany to marry. At the end of his leave he returned to Holland with his bride to continue his internment. * * ☆ Women and Young men are to become laible to compulsory labour in the fields and war factories of France “to ensure the nation’s food supplies and the fullest output of war materials.”

“We cannot conquer fate and necessity, yet we can yield to them in such a manner as to be greater than if we could.” —Cicero. * it A According to “Science and Discovery”: “A new contribution to medical science is the ability to petrify human organs so that they look like pieces of coloured marble. Diseased organs can be hardened to make study easier, then made soft again for investigation under the microscope.”