FAGIN KEEPS WATCH

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8367, 1 March 1913, Page 10

FAGIN KEEPS WATCH

STORY OF BOY BURGLAR AND GIRL SHOPLIFTER.

MORE LIKE ROMANCE, FATHER WAITS OUTSIDE HOUSE WITH REVOLVER. LONDON, January 19. “This case is more like romance than real life. I cannot conceive parents behaving as you have done; and I feel that tho case ought really to have coma boforo one of his Majesty’s Judges at the Assizes, and not before this court." This observation was made by tho chairman at tho Grimsby County Police Court at the close of the hearing of a case in which evidence, was given of training young children to steal, and a story was told of hew a modern Fagin kept watch with a loaded revolver. Prisoners wore Margaret Perryer and her husband, Alfred W. Perryer, seaman.

Fcrryor, a man of superior appear* anno, speaking with a refined accent, was charged with breaking into tho Kursaal, Oloothorpes, and stealing miscellaneous articles value £ll, and with breaking into the bungalow of Ate G. Goulding, Humberstone, and stealing goods value £lO. The woman was charged with receiving cigars, cigarperfumes, toilet requisites, and other articles stolen by her twelve-year-old daughter. Mr J. Carr, chemist, Cleethorpes, missed a largo quantity of goods from tho counter of his shop, and ho associated their disappearance with the visits of a little girl, Annie Langridge, a daughter of the female prisoner, who went to the shop and made small purchases. Ho set a case of perfume upon tho counter as a trap upon seeing tho girl approach, and while his back was turned attending to her requirements, she slipped it beneath her coat. The police ware infomedt and they, visiting tho child’s home in College street, made a surprising discovery, for they found cases and hampers full of stolen property, the result of thefts over an extensive period. The matter was followed up, and the male prisoner was arrested upon arrival from sea, and the woman was taken into custody. Then the two children, Alfred Percy Langridge, 15, and Amy Langridge, 12, told an extraordinary story. Tha girl said she had been systematically pilfering from shops and taking the proceeds straight home to her mother, who hid the goods away. If there were visitors to the house, she used to tap at the window. Her mother would then come outside, and take the articles, while witness went off for others.! BOY PUT THROUGH TO UNFASTEN BOLTS.

Alfred Percy Langridge, a good-look-ing, bright, intelligent lad, told the court that in November last cue day when his father came in from sea, Tin said to him, “I’ve been thinking all the trip about the Kursaal on the Promenade. There’s heaps of nice things there. You’ll have to come with me.” He sent witness to buy a pocket electric lamp, and that night they went with a jemmy to the building. They could not force the back door, but they prised a small opening at the front, and witness was put through it Xo onfasten-tho bolts from' the : inside, ! and admit his father. There was a rifle range close by, and . they could hear people firing; Witness’s father produced a revolver from his pocket, and said, “If you see anything of a policeman, let me know. I’ll shoot him. No one will know the noise that on the range.” They removed a sackful of things from the place, and then secured it from the outside, so no one could tell that it had been robbed. Upon another occasion prisoner said, “There’s a bungalow on the golf links. Are you rfoming?” Witness replied, “I suppose I have to?” and prisoner said, “Yes.” The place was Mr Geulding’s, and they forced the door and stripped the premises of all the best furnishings, which the prisoner coolly removed on a gardener’s barrow, found, at the rear of the premises. Prisoner pleaded “Guilty” of both offences, , and said ho had nothing , to say. The female prisoner said she only took the things to keep them safely until opportunity arose to restore them to their owners. She did not wish the children to steal, but she kept quiet, so as to screen her husband. The magistrate committed Porryer for eight months on the two charges, and tho woman for six months, the chairman saying it was only the pleas of “guilty” and the fact that they had not been previously convicted, which prevented them from being sent before a higher court.