MARY RILEY O!

NZ Truth, Issue 119, 28 September 1907, Page 6

MARY RILEY O!

A Perfect Hummer.

Queer how people fail to^wasli themsielves and get obnoxious m the sight of men — and women. There is .plenty of soap made m Christchurch and water runs loose by the million gallons annually, yet there are peoiple there who stink like polecats. A constable had an unpleasant task Iforced on him the other day. He 3iad to arrest Mary Riley— not Molly, Riley. The wench was drunk. She also smelt like seven sulphurous devils fried m a dirty abattoir, and he was loth to touch her. She fairly (hummed. However, the lady had to go along, and the gentlemanly cop:.per was obliged to turn his smelling (apparatus m the direction, of Heaven all the way to the station. Then he got so wild that he not only charged her with being boozed, but also with being an idle and disorderay person within the meaning of the Act— that lots of people don't understand. Mary is a sallow-faced harlot who doesn't often dress for a Ibail, and when she faced Mr Bishop, S.M., she admitted, being a person of no high moral status, but urged ithat she had a poulticed hand and •hadn't been able to wash up, or 'rturn the mangle, vor make dresses for ithe aristocracy fo;; quite a fortnight. Her haftd was poisoned, and she was losing a nail or a tack or something, and work was right out of the question. But what officialdom remarked was thait Riley was a nomad and walked the streets at all hours, and didn't apear to have any settled place of stbode^ ; Also that her chance acquaintances didn't belong to fthe gentleman's club', &ttd ithat she had HfiSRMIN CAREERING- OVER HER

•look" well m a draper's window.- 'It' was further averred that she wasn't well known m Christchurch, and that she had come from Wellington. Writer doesn't know that the fact of coming from Wellington is a disqualification, but at all events Riley was disqualified for three months for running off the moral course. But she was given the option of the Samaritan Home or hell— the Lyttelton hell, that is. And after all there isn't much difference between the two sheols. She .took , the Samaritan.