FAILURE TO PAY A FARE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15124, 15 October 1912, Page 9

FAILURE TO PAY A FARE.

MAGISTRATE SPEAKS OUT.

[FROM OPR own correspondent.]

London, August 30. " How a woman in your position, wearing feathers and jewellery, and apparently trying to be a lady, could act in this way I can't imagine. It is not the- act of a lady to cheat a railway company, and it is not the act of a lady to tell lies. The fact is, you are practically a thief as well as a liar. It is a disgraceful case,", said the magistrate at West London yesterday to Mrs. Marie Louise Pristo, of' Wimbledon Park "Road, Southfields, who was charged on a summons with travelling on the district railway without paying her fare.

The evidence showed that defendant took a ticket from a slot machine at Charing Cross to Victoria. She remained on the train until it arrived at. Southfields, where she tendered a penny to the collector, saying ".From East Putney." She was stopped, by a ticket examiner who had travelled with her from Charing Cross, and repeated that she had come from East Putney. Questioned further, she alleged that she got in at Earl's Court, and alighted at Putney Bridge, where she bought a paper, threw her ticket away, and then got into a train and came on to Southfields. When the examiner told her he had followed her from Charing Cross she offered to pay tho fare. She had not left the carriage from Charing Cross to Southfields. Mr. Oswald Hanson (for the defence) said ho could not resist the evidence of (he railway officials, and all he could say for the defendant was that she ha/1 been in indifferent health lately, and that there was no need for her to do such a thing. There was no suggestion in the evidence that she had done such a thing before. Mr. Fordham (the magistrate): Is that so? Mr. Ellis (prosecuting): I am sorry to say there is reason to believe that" she lias done it beforein fact, she lias been under observation. Mr. Fordham observed that there was no redeeming feature in the case. The defendant had not the excuse of a poor mm, who might find it difficult to pay his fare to get to his work. "You must pay a fine of 40s and 38s costs," he added, "or go to prison for one month."