CRASH OF A CAKE-EATER

NZ Truth, Issue 1173, 24 May 1928, Page 4

CRASH OF A CAKE-EATER

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Wellington Representative.) * FET hair lavishly brilliantined, eyes heavy and dark-rimmed through^ loss ** of sleep; the eyes of a middl^-^ged man who would have insisted upon climbing the heights of. night life m top gear the whole way; a pallid face reflecting the city likeness of art insipid sheikdom. _ This was the impression given by Stephen Ronald Elsby, youtfitul male cook at the Wellington Club, as he stood before two justices of the peace m the Wellington Police Court. In a mood of drunken foolishness, he stole two bottles of cocktail and a box of cigarettes, with which to entertain a male friend and two gins m his room, as the outcome of which he lost his job and added the second entry to his record on the C.1.8. files. (Although Elsby, through his legal adviser, Lawyer F. D. O Halloran, pleaded virtual innocence and proffered the explanatiotrthat he had every intention of paying for the refreshments, he encountered some difficulty m explaining why he crept downstairs m rubber-soled shoes. He had what he described to the detectives as "a bit of a party" m his room until six a.m., with a' man named "Bill" and two girls whose names he was decent enough not to mention. At four o'clock the^ existence of liquor and cigarettes was manifest only by a litter of empty bottles and packets, so Elsby the needs of his guests from the pantry bar of the club. A little later, the night porter found the slide leading from the pantry to the bar open, so he reported his misgivings to the manager. . • ..- . At eight o'clock the manager went to Elsby's room, but he was hopelessly drunk and it was not until later m the morning that he could give a coherent account of what had happened. ? ; First came denial— then admission of the theft, followed by the assurance that he would iay for the articles, but he acted upon his dismissal without keeping his promise and the detective office was asked to investigate. Chief-Detective Ward cross-examined Elsby at some length when he appeared [n court, the youth admitting he had served three months' im- . prisonment for theft m 1927. The bench accompanied its order of twelve months' probation, as well as payment for the goods stolen, with an admonition that Elsby ponder the certainty of punishment for a repetition of the past, and some practical advice on the advantages of keeping along the straight and narrow. '„..'■ ■ '■' The accused youth mumbled something. about doing his best, hurriedly left the b°x «nd removed himself from the gaze of those m court.

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