BOND A BIKE.

NZ Truth, Issue 353, 30 March 1912, Page 7

BOND A BIKE.

He Told Three Tales and Got a "Sixer."

Bikes are so -00111111011 111 Christchurch, as this paper has often remarked, that people lea.ye them lying about m a most reckless fashion, and invite dishonest persons to sample them m a way, that they wouldn't do with jewellery of equal value. A Ohristchurch resident has been known to place a machine up against a verandah post, take a three months' trip, and exhibit keen surprise and disappointment later upon finding it gone. There are piles of ownerless bikes at the central police station, and it is astonishing how many people there are who make no inquiries about their missing property. The industry of pinching machines, taking them to pieces, and converting the unidentifiable remnants into .new vehicles is a common and lucrative one. The unguardedness of apparently deserted bikes is a source of continual astonishment to persons from the chill land of the big mining strike, where a wayfarer cannot take a hand oft any property for one second without finding it gone. He finds it gone even when he has got a hand on it. More frequently than otherwise the person who ta~kes possession of an iron" steed m Chris tchurch and attempts to dispose of it, hails from the country of starving millions, and it usually serves the careless owner right if he never sees his . machine j again. The cleserters from ocean Hners who settle jn the, Dominion frequently make good citizens, but there are occasional wasters, and Richard Sutton is one of them. He deserted from the Kaiapoi on February 1, and joined the Maori on the same night, doing a I'bunk" from the monopoly's boat nineteen days later at Lyttelton. On February 2f> Henry George McNicholl, a youth employed as messenger by a local business firm, left his fairly-new bicycle m the right-of-way between Manchester and Tuam- streets, and never collected it, because it wasn't there to collect. Recently Sutton was apprehended for ship desertion at Waimate, and had this bike m his possession. His replies to civil interrogations were so unsatisfactory that he was brought along to Christchurch by Peeler Fender, who has changed from a raw-boned son of the Auld Sod to a fat, comfortable oflicer since his transfer from Ohristchurch to Watmate, a dairy-fed country noted for its magnificent stock. Sutton ex- , plained that he bought the footpropeTled mechanism m Ohristchurch for £13 13s on February 20, six days before the theft. He .then recollected that ht had really purchased it from an unspecified man m Lyttelton ; bur finally told the po-

lice that if they wanted the real j dinkum truth, straight wire and no shinnanikin, he purchased it from a gentleman m Christchurch for £>i ! 10s. He offered to sell it to an individual m Waimate, butt* the prospective buyer wanted to see Sutton' s receipt for it. Unfortunately, Sutton had lost it> and when the intending purchaser asked him to come, along to the police station and see if the machine's number was not m the list of missing cycles, Sutton mounted the machine : and rode off towards the skyline like TJilmartin or Birtles or Sutherland at their best. j The last yarn told by Sutton seem- , ed the best one to stick to. He re- .! marked to Detective McLeod that he gave the mythical man £4 10s for the bike m the Railway Hotel, t Christchurch. ' • j Sutton assured the bench that he had £7 10s when he left .the Maori , and went to Rakaia to negotiate for a joTd with the .Loan and Mercantile Agency Co. He succeeded and re- j turned to Christchurch and had a few wets with a gentleman, who, by a singular coincidence, had a bike for sale. Sutton wanted a bike to get out to his job at Rakaia, and although the seller demanded £17 10s, Sutton beat him down to £4 10s, and departed m- triumph for his toil. He had the same machine .m Christchurch later, and finally ped-. ailed through to Timaru and then on to \\!aimate, .where he. had been subjected to absurd cross-examination by the police. Magistrate Bishop remarked that the young man, who had a fortnight's growth of beard on his pale dial, hadn't explained the three different explanations he had given to the force. His Worship glanced casually at the .white-faced accused's record, and sent him down for six. months to the bikeless Paradise at ! Lyttelton, where the crooked cease from troubling and the beery are at rest. I