A PITIFUL INCIDENT.

New Zealand Herald, 29 June 1914, Page 8

A PITIFUL INCIDENT.

NEGLECTED LITTLE GIRL.

ON TRAMP WITH HER FATHER.

[nv TELiiuiurn.—- correspondent.]

Gisborne, Sunday. A DEi'LOBABLJj sUit« of affairs was disclosed at tlio Juvenile Court yesterday morning when an cight-yoar-old girl was charged with not having any homo or fiottlod place of abode.

Senior-Sergeant Hutton said that complaints had been made by country settlers that a little girl had been brought overland by a man pud left, in a ncglected condition, at a house. Tlio child had been sleeping out in sheds and tents, and in any place that she could get along the road. The sergeant said that the man admitted that he li4d traveled frpm Rotorua via Tauranga and Opotiki tp Giaborno, and when the constable overtook him he was making towards Wairoa and Napior. Tho man, it appeared, had beeu in Gisborne a short time. Ho said ho was a gardener by callipg, and a characterreader and palmist.

Constable Moloney, giving evidence, said that be had received complaints about a man taking a littlo girl along tho road from place to place. Yesterday, witness overtook him and the little girl about six miles beyond Waerengaokuri.' They wore walking aluug tho road, which waft in a very bad state, and the day was bitterly cold. He asked the man wherO he" was taking the little girl to. The man said he intended taking" Tier' to Wairoa, thenco to Napier, and. from theje to AYaipapa. Ho was going to walk and' get lifts as beat he could. Witness asked him where ho camo from and'Kifsaid he had como from Auckland through - Tauranga and Opotiki. The child had not sufficient clothes, and was in a pitiful condition. Tho man, William "Morey, said bin inton tion wits to get to \yairland ooiruuiuwcato with' his brother and take the child to him, They had no children and would be only too glad'to -look after hor. Ho had. only, two shillings on ljim- The child's mother was de'ad.

The magistrate said ho would commit the' child to tbo Wellington Receiving Home, and If Morey could satisfy tho authorities that alio would be properly looked after there would bo no trouble in getting her released.