"LONELY HEARTS LEAGUE."
PRISONER'S HEARTLESS ACT. LETTERS TO A YOUNG GIRL, [from - our own correspondent.] SYDNEY, Feb. 11.. In the solitude of a cell in Melbourne Gaol a prisoner' conceived the idea of setting up a league of lonely hearts. How far the ramifications of the league would have extended can only be surmised. At 8,11 events it had a successful' beginning, though a bad ending. It began with a letter of appeal concocted by the prisoner, "glowing with a desire to become acquainted with someone whose life could be brightened—one whosie life 'was- as his, a life of dreariness and loneliness. His heart ached for the sweet association of a woman, who could help hixn rise to heights of happiness and contentment. Somehow in that * mysterious manner known perhaps only to those who have spent some years behind prison walls, the letter came through an intermediary into the hands of a girl at Jerilderie, New South Wales. It was couched in the . terms stated. It was full of pleading, self-renunciation, and a desire to brighten her life, or the life of any youjig woman into whose hands the letter might come. Who the woman might bet was a matter of indifference to the man. It was a broadcast appeal, bat the intermediary placed the letter where he thought the best results could be obtained. And so the girl entered into an impassioned and glowing correspondence with the unknown lonely Unan, who described himself to the unknown lover as a naval officer, confined on an island because of a slight breach of discipline on a warship. When he escaped, he said, he would meet her> and they would marry and live happily ever after. The correspondence continued and one day, when he was being transferred from one place to another, he broke his "word of honour''to his escort, and cleared out. He was making toward Jerilderie when the police' got him again, and he is now back in Pentridga doing a longer term. At the Criminal Court, a Judge, in. strong terms, told the prisoner what he thought of this heartless conduct and his utter lack of honour in any form. An innocent girl, he said, was made to give her affection to a criminal who had already served a number of sentences. The result of the correspondence could onlv b9 left to the imagination. The man, whose real name is Martin Wellington, and whose age is 42, will now hsnre 12 months inside a prison where hard labour will make his bones ache,, though it may not ease "his aching heart."', , . : . . -
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19255, 18 February 1926, Page 16
Word Count
432"LONELY HEARTS LEAGUE." New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19255, 18 February 1926, Page 16
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