TROUBLESOME 'TECS.

NZ Truth, Issue 78, 15 December 1906, Page 6

TROUBLESOME 'TECS.

DINNIE'S DEMONS' DUBIOUS DODGES. Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal ! Brave Workers Hounded by Shady Thief-makers. V A few months ago, some remarks of His- Honor Sir Robert Stout, m the Wellington Supreme Court, caused considerable fluttering m the police dovecots. A man up before the judge for senteuce made a statement alleging that, although he had endeavored to reform since his last term of imprisonment, the police, by making it their 'business to acquaint his employer with full details of his clouded past, had made it impossible for him to. earn an honest livelihood. Consequently he found himself obliged to as;ain resort to crime m order to live. The: man's story was so palpably j true m substance that Chief Justice 1 Stout was moved to pass SOME : SEVERE STRICTURES on such .pernicious police ; practices. That a man should, because he had m the past been a rogue, be hounded down by. the police . m sucn fashion as to make his redemption an utter impossibility, came m the light of a revelation to the judge (though God knows it should not to a lawyer of such experience) and he did not hesitate—and m this he was but dojfl& his duty— to .condemn such tactics. "Under such conditions as fa&g'^wd] said, "it appears to me. tftg/fcthe redemption of a man whg^s onC e fal-1 len is absolutely^.jsifossitjie m New ; Zealand." ■ -*S^ \ It uiiKh^turally be supposed that such con^nination, coming as it did fror^-the supreme Wad of the legal SSaehmery of the would have had the effect' of 'eradicating the cri-minal-hounding business. Nothing of the sort. Dinnie's demon detectives are "'playing the game stronger than ever before. If a man has once been "m the nick," he can make up his mind that whilst he remains m New Zealand, he will never be able to j earn an honest living again. No matter how much he may desire to retrieve East sins and wickednesses, that nian is damned for evermore m. Maoriland. What use his effort to get work. So sure as he is succecsful, so sure will a detective officer call upon his employer and give him the delinquent's past history, dwelling lpvinglv and lonn; upon the number of times the miscreant has been -m prison and the offences for which he was incarcerated. Result, outgoes the wouldbe reformed man tp either resume his search, for honest graft, or else, as an alternative, and by fir the most easy alternative, slip back into the old criminal life once more. A man, well-known to the police, who . has m his time served more than , . one stretch for burglary and kindred crimes, but who is now endeavoring to lead an honest life; 1 has given a representative of this paper a few glowing details illustrating the houndine; propensities of the New Zealla:Tid''detective force. : The ex-burglar, ■yfhose, name; is only.^withheld yfrom, publicati on ßawing '^b^he' fact "that. hfe ; that some 'mine ago -he",, wascpnyictfed •at burslary &t : an Auckland hoteL : . HE SERVED THREE. YEAR'S for his crime, and when his time was u.i> went away into the King Country to work. "I had," said he, "tried both games, and . had come to the conclusion that there was nothing m the crook business for me:" He grafted hard m the King Country and some months, later returned to Auckland with a cheque for £55. He put up at the Family and Naval Hotel, Auckland, giving the landlord the greater portion of his cheque to mind for him. Only for a day or two was the reformed crook allowed 4o be m peace. Coming down the hotel stairs one evening he met Detective Millar. The following day he was told; by the landlord that his room had i. been let— in , other words he was told to get out. Of course the man. Millar had PUT THE EX-CONVICT'S "POT ON," . ' • ■ v • .- and he had to quit. Next he moved to the Gladstone Coffee Palace, but he took the precaution this time to tell the landlord, Hawkins, who he was .and what he was,, or rather what he had been. A day Or two. after tfie ex-burglar was standing' at the bar m the Central Hotel partakinfi; of a refresher,' when ' m stepped Detective Millar. Nothing passed' between the two, but shortly afterwards a barmaid from the Central called on Hawkins' wife at the Gladstone Coffee Palace, and. proceeded to relate to her' that they were, harborin?;. an ex-con-' vict m their::' establishment. The only natural inference to , draw, from this was that ' meddling Millar, having seen the man m the Central, had poured forth his whole history into

the shocked ear of the barmaid, whose only possible interest m the man lay m the fact that she had served him with ,a\glass 'of beer. ! Afterwards ! the- ex^ppnyict: went baclc to the-Jiing was . weilr'kndwn he was grafting; hon- i estly,v a-- detective tried' to pet his landlord £o fcuirn him" out of the hotel m which' he was staying. Subsequently this much-worried individual came to Wellington. He is ! working here on a navvy ing contract. Further, he is living m a hoardinghouse m the town and, moreover, paying his way with money honestly earned. Jt might be imagined from this that the D's would give him a chance, but he complains that his employer, has been waited on by one of the crowd, and . ! INFORMED OF. HIS ANTECE- -. ■, ' DENTS. Fortunately the persecuted one had anticipated events and had informed his boss himself as to his past career. To, the master man's credit, be it said, he held that the fact of a man having erred m; the past did not incapacitate him from earning eight shillings a day with pick. and shovel, so • the detective's visit had no disastrous consequences. No one contends, of cottrse, that a notorious criminal should be allowed to continue his nefarious career un•checked, but when a man, however lurid his past may have been, shows an honest endeavor to become 3 respectable member of society; he should certainly not 1 be deterred by the meddlesorn'e methods of muddle-headed crime-detectors. It is their duty to differentiate between the "has-been" and fhe "is;" -and' if they cannot do j this they are not fitted for the Positions they hold. As things are, Chief Justice, Stout's words, when he stated that under the Present con- I ditions the redemption of -> man who has onre fallen is practically impossible m New Zealand, suim up the case exactly. ' J