DOING A DRUNK.

NZ Truth, Issue 128, 30 November 1907, Page 6

DOING A DRUNK.

William Walton's Woes.

The moll . houses of a city, dens of debauchery where drinking and prostitution is carried on, and drunken fools are battered about and taken down for their cash, are a veritable curse. William Walton, of Martinborough. Wairarapa, 'has found it so. He went to Christchuroh to see the Cup, and on landing had £27 m his kick. As is usual m such, cases, a visit to sundry pubs was included m the holiday, and William soon got sleepy. He asked cabman Bristol to drive him to a place where he could have a rest and a sleep, and Bristol, after taking him to the Royal George, where he had a wine, drove him to a house of ill-fame run by Josephine Webb. Walton slumbered jon a couch there for a bit, but plenty of grog was brought m, Walton paying for it. Just about dusk, two scoundrels named Edward Mills and Harry Witte knocked at the door, and said, they had ..come to take their mate away for a drink. Mrs Webb said, "lOh, 'if this is your mate, take him." Walton said -he was a stranger and had no mates. He was ordered to get out, however. There were three men outside m all, the other * being a notorious gaol bird named Francis Joseph Donnelly. They rushed the unfortunate man on the footpath, knocked him down, and they held him while Witte cut his top vest pocket with a knife, securing his watch. It v\ r as Donnelly who threw Walton, and Ernest Arthue Minifie, a commercial, was watching the proceedings -

WITH UNDISGUISED INTEREST, and he • asked what they were doing. Donnelly replied: "!He is our mate, but he is 'drunk, and we will have to leave him." Then they left him, but Minifie followed on his bike to make sure of identifying them again. He passed them, and waited for them to come up, when he had a squint at them again by the aid of \his bike lamp. He heard Donnelly say prior io that : "I've done my best, I don't know whether it's coppers* or not." Next morn-ins Minifie identified them at the station. Donnelly and Witte slept together m a room m a boarding house that night, but both denied to the 'tecs, next 'morning that they -had been at the place where the- affair happened. The top of a. round match-box was found m the room, the other part of which was m Walton's possession. Mills also denied knowledge of the affair. These thugs had really no defence to tender the jury, not an atom. Th-ev had been put on to the scent that there was a monied mug m the locality, and they despoiled him of all but £1 ss. It was shown that Donnelly had been sent up for uttering counterfeit coins, vagrancy, and multifarious other offences, so he got three years. Mills and Witte had also ibeen m quod, but their sentence was made a year less, so three, • at least cf the city's disreputable footpads will be out of the way, for a while. -