THEFT OF LEATHER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15096, 12 September 1912, Page 5

THEFT OF LEATHER.

A YOUNG MAN'S LAPSE.

A Yovxc logging-maker, named Alfred James Potter, was charged before Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., with stealing from J. Wiseman and Sons, his employers, leather to'the value of £4 10s. Accused pleaded guilty.

Chief-Detective MacMahon stated that tho accused had been in tho • .habit of taking leather from, his place of employment, making it up at. home, and selling the articles thus made to second-hand dealers. Accused •was a young man, with a. wife and three children. Ho believed that racing was at the bottom of the present trouble. Accused was a sober man, and did not drink, but ho had got into straitened circumstances through betting on horse-rac-ing, and had taken this method .of recuperating his finances. Tho accused had made a, statement to him, - which he handed to tho 'magistrate. Tho detective suggested that a fine might meet tho case. The magistrate said that tho offence was not ono that ho usually punished in any other way than, by imprisonment. Tho accused's statement had been particularly frank, and he would take this into account. The accused would be convicted and fined £10, and the value of the goods stolen, and ordered to pay the fine in weekly instalments of 5.«. This, His Worship concluded, would take quite twelve months, and would serve to bring homo to the accused the enormity of his offence.