A SECOND “JEANNIE DEANS.’

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1509, 31 January 1901, Page 61

A SECOND “JEANNIE DEANS.’

An extraordinary story was told at the Marylebone Police Court recently by a married; wouian named Annie Godfrey, aged 23, who described herself as a charwoman, and was charged before Mr Flowden with being drung and disorderly at Praed street, Paddington. The evidence was 'that about nine o’clock that morning Police Sergeant lawless found her lying at full length across the pavement, surrounded by a large crowd and shouting. She was drunk, and when asked to get up and go away she said she would not move for the Prince of Wales, much les a policeman.

In her defenoe accused denied she was drunk, and declared that what was taken for drunkenness was exhaustion brought about by walking from Newcastle to London, a distance of nearly 300 miles. This journey, she said, she accomplished in ten days. In reply to the magistrate, she said the object of her visit was to see her children, who were in Princess Mary’s Village Homes at Addlestone. They had been there three months, and, having the natural feelings of a mother, she was anxious to see them. When she had seen the children she should try and get a little work on the road, and then go 'back to Newcastle. Before starting - for London the told the lady for whom she had been working what she intended to do, and the lady raised

no objection, but gave her 2s Gd, one shilling of -which sue spent on a cab to avoid being dragged through the streets by a policeman. All she had new was ICHd and that she wanted to keep for her children.

Ivlr Plowden : I think you are a second Jeannie Deans. JL do not know whether you have ever heard of her, but you are. If I was quite sure your story was true I wotfld like to help you back. I don’t want to disbelieve you.

In reply to a further question the prisoner said she had no “friend’s” in the world except her children.

Mr Plowden said that, while it- was very creditable to her, it was rather a mad thing to walk three hundred mile 3 to London without knowing a- s-oul here or having a halfpenny in her pocket. He had no means of investigating her story, but he believed it for the purposes of that day, and would discharge her. He 'Would have helped her had he been able to make sure of her story.