BENEFACTOR ROBBED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

BENEFACTOR ROBBED

AN ORPHAN'S INGRATITUDE " Wo should like to bo as nice to you as your uncle has been, but I am afraid wo can't. You havo been an ungrateful lad, and the only way to teach you that your ways are wrong is to punish you." Tho chairman of tho Highgate magistrates made this comment to Albert Freeman, aged 22, who pleaded guilty to embezzling money from his uncle, and was sentenced to two months' imprisonment. Freeman, it was stated, was employed in his uncle's coal office in London and absconded with £4O. On arrest ho told tho police a doctor had said ho was suffering from tuberculosis. "It preyed on my mind, and 1 decided to have a good time to forget all about it," ho went on, and added that ho went to Blackpool and spent the £lO on amusements." The uncle said that when the youth's parent died three years ago ho took him and his brother to live with him. Freeman was employed on the local wharf at a wage of £4 a week. " But," declared tho uncle, " ho got too big for mo and went away." Later ho wrote asking to be taken back and he was taken back. " I can do no more for him," said the uncle. Asked how Freeman's brother was behaving, the uncle replied: " Oh, he's a nico kid, but this ono has had moro than enough chances."