NO MONEY

NZ Truth, Issue 1228, 13 June 1929, Page 1

NO MONEY

Kicked In A Witidotp HIS EXCUSE (From "N.Z. Truth's" : Christchurch . .... Rep.) ■ Having no money and nowhere to sloop Thomas John Long, a Christchurch laborer, put his foot through a shop window and stole some shoes. ''..'■"' Then m a calm moment he relented. But he could not return the shoes nor mend the window. JONG did not.c hoose the right time * J -.;iior the right locality to gain his prospective* bed. The hour was 9.30 p.m. and the shop window he broke was m one of the busiest parjs of Colombo Street. . • Someone 'phoned. Henry Frederick Herbert, the proprietor of the shop, and he lost'no time m getting: to the scene. When he arrived, he found that ' the glass 'from the window and from three broken shoe stands had damaged about half a dozen pairs of shoes. Herbert, estimated the damage done at, over £25. The sound of breaking glass attracted; Constable Armstrong:. He saw Long behind the show-case " and ; learned from him that he was the man who did the damage. ".'"• ' .— "Why did you break the window?" asked' the constable. ' "I have no money, and nowhere to sleep to-night," was the reply. "I took the shoes to sell- to- morrow.". When Mr. E. C. Levyey, S.M., asked Long, m the Magistrate's Court, if he had, anything to say '■■ about the matter, he replied that he ; had: - : : ■'■. ; , ; ':;■•■ ; Indicating the three shoes which had been taken .from him at the police station, Long said: "The window is broken, and the shoes are there. That is the end of, it. I can't put them back again or close up the hole m the window." That was not the end of it. Long pleaded guilty to wilfully- damaging a window, damaging- three shoe stands, stealing three, shoes and breaking and entering by night and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence on the indictable charge.