THE SNARER SNARED.

NZ Truth, Issue 240, 12 February 1910, Page 8

THE SNARER SNARED.

Blackmailer Has to Pay.

Sheard the Sue;

ak Shorn of Shekels.

E.- J. Shcard, who wrote a letter to a New Brighton woman charging her with' intimacy with men other than her husband, and threatening '.to' tell hubby if he were not furnished with fifty shillings, is a young man of twenty-five, although absence of , thatch about the temples suggests a greater age. He pleaded guilty m Chris tchurch S.M. Court, and came up for sentence before Judge Sim on Monday. .

Barrister Hunt said ho could not make an application for ..probation, /.but ho directed attention to the ,man's comparative youth, and to the fact that he was m constant employment. The crime was a serions one, but even m such offences there were degrees of crime. The evidence proved that there had been correspondence m printed handwriting between the accused and the woman, and on the very day that she got the blackmailing letter she wrote to Shcard and made an appointment to meet him.

His Honor said he had not seen the letter. A search for it among the docu~ menl.s failed to repeal it.- The evidence disclosed friendship between the two.

Counsel suggested that a small fine wouM meet the case. Sheard, who had never been before the court before, was working for tJowron Bros., and couldn't explain why he .had committed the' offence. Whether the impulse was due to a course of pernicious novel reading counsel didn't know.

His Honor said he didn:t think it was a case where it was desirahle to send the man to gaol. A fine of £25 was imposed, Sheard to remain m gaol until the fine was paid.

A couple recently knelt on cushions filled with their love letters wbile being married. This isn't a fair thing on the poor men who earn bread and wati-r by fabricating what is called Alleged Humor. They should have stuffed a maUrass with the letters, so that the witty ones could have made a half-column joke on the propensity of people to He— in bed and m love-letters.

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