VANITY PLEADED IN EXCUSE FOR CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7650, 29 May 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

VANITY PLEADED IN EXCUSE FOR CRIME.

An undue lovo of tincry has brought many young women within tho clutches of. the law, but it is seldom that the sterner sex run the risk of arrest in order to obtain articles wherewith to "smarten themselves up." This waa the ingenious defence made by two well-drcsaod lads named Henry Barnes and William Brown, who were charged at tho Mansion Uouao on April 9, with stealing tooth-paste, cau-do-Cologtie, and hair-dye from tho shop of Mr. Pond, a chemist, in Fleet-street. One of tha prisoners had been seen by a couple of plain-clothes constables to enter and leavo Mr. Pond's shop several times in a suspicious manner, and when they finally walked away from the premise. , they were followed and arrested with the stolen articles in their It subsequently transpired that Master Brown's visits v/cro regulated by the absence of tiio shopman. Whenever tho assistant's br.ek wnu turned Brown popped in and helped himself to any article he could lay hold of. Brown and Barnes may—as they stated in defence—havo been actuated simply with a tiesire to improve their personal appearance; but tho month's hard labour to which they have botn Honteuccd by Alderman Owdcn will teach these two juvenile shoplifters that the law does not accept any excuse for appropriating other psoplc'n property, however ingeniously the transfer is clT'joUml.