BOWLED OUT.

NZ Truth, Issue 96, 20 April 1907, Page 5

BOWLED OUT.

A MAN OF MANY ALIASES.

Posed as a Paragon of

Innocence.

A Criminal Record Book Settled

Him.

Criminals generally are very touchy, on their previous oonvictions, and a confession of having been there before has to be practically dragged from, their unwilling lips ere they own up. 1 A criminal who has a record, moreover, has his photograph taken, and his mug, more or less ugly, adorns a criminal album, which also carries details of any peculiarities on his face and limbs or body, and as the police all over Australasia are supplied with copies of these ' photographs, the crook, when he strikes trouble, is pretty quickly identified, and all the ?hosts of his past resurrected. Now, there are a lot of crooks who are fools and don't take their lawyers, into their confidence and tell them all about their past, and paint 'only glorified pictures of injured, outraged innooence, and their lawyers, or some of them get to • work and think they are on a soft -lay, amd that an acquittal will speedily, follow. But they are , '■ '" KNOCKED KITE-HIGH when the.police eet .curious and want to know all about the crook's past and produce Ms photo, and make both the innocent crook and the enthusiastic lawyer look very foolish. Suck a case cajne before. Magistrate McArthur, at the S.M..'s ..Court, yesterday morning, when an elderly individual calling himself John Carroll, but whom the police knew better as John Russell, or Walsh, or Donnelly, answered a charge of stealing about'a tenner's worth of dress material from outside a Laxnibton Quay drapery store. His plea was that'he received tbe same not knowing it to be stolen, •wMch was taken as a plea of not guilty. The facts of the case showed it to be an'impudent daylight robibery from the shop-front of the establishment concerned on April 3. Early that afternoon a man not identified was observed to pick up the tweed stuff and jerk it into a cab. The cabby was not looking at the time, but his fare was Carroll, who, when the Jetou, whose name is Lane, wtoo was on the stand just outside the drapery store, looked around he found Carroll on the step and was; told to drive to the Manaiwatu Station. They stopped for drinks on the way thereto, and m the meantime Constable Lilley and a shop assistant set out m pursuvt of the thief. He was found at the Government Station, where the cab had been pulled up by another individual, presumed by the police to know more about the theft than he .would care to admit. At anyra.te Lilley was soon on.the scene and collared Carroll and tlje rolls. of cloth, and Carroll told a strong tale of the goods having been given ham by another man, who had represented himself as being a storekeeper at Palmerston North, who had met Carroll, or whatever .his name is, on the Mararoa on the way up from Ohristehuroh, and who bad promised him a job.. Carroll had £27 odd on him when. pinched and was therefore able to engage a lawyer, and 1 he selected Mr Wilford, whose statement of. the defence was a plausible one, and one which might have gone down had not something happened.' He described Carroll as a hard-working, decent, respectable chap who had NEVER BEEN IN TROUBLE i ' BEFORE, and tine q\^i, srev. whiskered story of having met a man m the street, had had his whiskers, trimmed and brushed and .put beyond identification. Carroll cheerfully went into the box, and spoke' softly and sweetly and afleeted to be a soft simpleton who bad been led astray. He told his story of having met a strange man, and Mr Wilford sat down and SubInspeetor^O'Donovan took up the run-* ning and was not long beating about the bush. He got very anxious concerning Carroll's past career and wanted to know if he had. ever been m trouble before, and of .course Carroll had not. He said he came from Ireland, and had been m Hobart and then he admitted naving been, m Bathurst and Dub bo, m New South Wales, but a place called Mainland was unknown, to him. He could not recognise Ms own mup; at first m a New South Wales criminal album, which set forth that he had' been convicted at Jilaitland' of theft and m a feeble endeavor to explain away the remarkable faithfulness of the photographs he suggested that the pictures had been taken m Wellington. Asked to show his hand, Carroll carefully extended his right, but it was the left that the Sub-Inspector wanted. On one of the fingers was a scar and a deformed nail. These were described m the book, and it was also • set forth that the bloke whose picture was m the book had a missing tooth m the lower jaw, so Carroll opened his mouth at the Sub's request and a molar was found to be missing. There was little doubt m the mind of the Bench that Carroll had CHEERFULLY AND FREELY LIED. Mr Wilford : He says its not his photograph. :.,..- , The Bench reckoned that there were two concerned m the theft, and that Carroll had' had the bad luck to be caught, and so he sentenced him to three months' imprisonment. Mr. Wilford then explained how often it happened that criminals would not confide their past m counsel, and told only everything m their favor. This case showed that the criminal who did that was a fool, as Carroll had represented himself as never having been previously convicted. It placed counsel m a difficult position. The Bench and . Sub-Inspector aprreed with the lawyer, and Dr. McArthur reckoned be did not lmow any other lawyer who could do more for a client than Mr Wilford, and Mr Wilford, -with becoming modesty said 'that he would not like to say that. Perhaps he thought it !