MEN WHO HAVE MADE GOOD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16890, 30 December 1916, Page 8

MEN WHO HAVE MADE GOOD.

A SIDELIGHT ON THE WAR. We are indebted to Mr Robert Holmes, tho well known London Police Court missionary and probation officer, for a wonderful account of the achievements in the great war wrought by men who have been outcasts from society, and who, by all who knew them, were looked upon as irreclaimable blackguards. We arc talking, remember, about the sort of man who gets a stiff sentence of penal servitude, and everybody says, "Serves him right; these fellows should be hanged!" These men were nuisances to themselves, to their well-wishers, and to the nation. Nothing—neither kindness nor severity, prison nor protection, education nor repression—served to wean them from their evil courses. Then came the war. With considerable misgiving, the War Office agreed to give these fellows a chance and see what reunited. In "Walter Greenway. Spy," Mr Holmes cites case after case to show us what did result. —The Girl in the Case.—

There was a young lad of engaging appearance and address who seemed to be bom a sneak-thief. Study canto easy to him, and he actually started to prepare for the ministry. He found it more congenial to steal his books rather than to' buy them. So brazen were his thefts that for a long time, though suspected, he escaped detection. Then came the crash. The girlish look of innocence that he wore took the heart of everybody from the magistrate down, and the universal judgment was that he could not be really bad. His new start ended as abruptly as his first owing to his habit of disposing of brasses taken from the engine room of the place where he was working. Finally, he became clerk to a fraudulent "bookie," to whom this innocent face was a great asset. The clerk one day walked off with the bag, and the "welsher," much to his annoyance, was left to bear the brunt of the storm. After this, our friend became a curate; and a very successful curate he made. Much sought after by the young ladies, he gave no cause for the slightest breath of scandal; but, with masterly zeal, became treasurer for every kind of fund that existed in the parish. Then he faded out with all the available cash! Even then his face gave guarantee that his professed reformation was genuine. He was trained as an evangelist, and had great vogue until his perpetual peculations brought him back to three years' penal servitude. On this release, he settled down in a colliery district, and, by a miracle, became an accredited insurance agent. His success was phenomenal and his popularity unbounded. He was actually on trial for the post of "local preacher" when he and £250 went off to New Zealand.

The "bookie" joined the army, and was in 1914 a sergeant in Flanders. Picture his delight when in a draft from home their appeared his former clerk. The youth had a rather strenuous time under his sergeant until he became a source of revenue to him. Dressed up as a girl, the former convict charmed the hearts of the soldiery, who readily took on the bookie in bete as to her sex. "Sifter Matty'' now become an institution in that part of the army. Nor did he stop at amusing his pals. A couple of snipers had made things unpleasant in this district, and Sister Matty, dressed as a Belgian peasant girl, walked off with a natty little basket and a bottle of real brandy. Soon after she was spotted being squired along the open by two old Belgian peasants, who vied with each other in making eyes at the fair vision. As they had sampled the brandy, liberally there was no difficulty in gathering them into the fold, and the sergeant finding them to be disguised Huns saw them safely where their sniping days were over. Sister Matty proved a perfect genius 'n deaJing with snipers and spies. The cleverness that so ill suited the State at home has proved invaluable abroad. —The Greaser. — The Grouser began his official career by "adopting" a lonely pur.-:e on his friend's mantelpiece. He would have returned it ere his departure had not his host expressed most villainous sentiments on the merits of Kruger, and the succeeding discussion put. the purse out of his mind and kept it in his pocket. Leaving his prison, he went to the workhouse, and confided to the probation officer his opinion that, had he been consulted, he could have greatly improved the situation there. He was drafted to commercial life at sea—as a stoker. Ho discovered that his shipmates were fools and his captain a tyrant. Change of ship made matters worse, and eventually, owing to the mysterious dis appearance of diamond rings in a shop he had visited, he paid a long visit to prison. Always his cry was that he was being put upon ; but at length he disappeared, and, when again heard of, he gone away to the fishing—fishing for "mines." As always, he proved the only intelligent person on the trawler, which was eventually blown up, largely through inattention to the Grouser's instructions. Transferred to a new boat, he continued his "mine" fishing for a time, and then the boat went off on "private business"— which appears to be a kindly term for attempting malicious mis-chief on U-boats. Later on he was wounded in the head and arms, mainly, according to his account, because the captain would not take his advice. It is tree that captains do not usually confer with their stokers; but the Grouser felt that he was no ordinary stoker. It is pleasing to know that this particular captain, in spite of his unwillingness to accept advice, writes of the Grouser:—"We'll look after his bread and butter. He has earned it right enough." — The Deaf Mute.— He was deaf and dumb. Everybody concerned felt that- he was a fraud, but still he remained doaf and dumb. In the cells a little adroit stupidity on the part of the warder, whose inability to understand that the signs of the prisoner indicated a desire for food, worked a miracle,, and the dumb spake. Nine times convicted of burglary, he was a moral mystery. He did not smoke, he did not drink, he" did not bet. Burglary was his only vice, a debased kind of hobby. In prison he was capable, intelligent, industrious, and obedient: bait out of it ho was a burglar. He was clever, and had a srood education, knew more than one language, and was an expert penman. He went off to sea, did well for a year, and disappeared at Colombo. In Mesopotamia, a poor Bedouin, deaf and dumb, and not at all keen-witted, wandered open-mouthed amid the trenches of the Turks. He provided great and welcome amusement. The guns, the trenches, the dug-outs filled him with childish fear. The officers—German and Turkish—discussed their plans openly while lie was hanging around with idiotic hesitancy. Here and there he wandered, and one day some Britishers found him knocking about near their front lines. They brought him in, and, as he seamed on the verge of starvation, they fed him. After he had satisfied his appetite lie sipat on the ground in contempt of the infidel, and went mooning about, until he disappeared somewhere about headquarters. Our burglar had arrived !

His extraordinary success as a spy continued for a considerable time, until the fee became suspicions. They fired off rifles at his car, and stood him near a big gun in action till blood ran from his' ears. Yes. he was deaf. Was lie dumb? They tore the nails from his finders and put hot irons against the tender parts of his flesh. No voice resulted. His character v.'as vindicated, but his health was gone. His left ann had to be amputated, and he was but the wreck of a nmn. His tormentors suffered vengeance. He ■was able to reveal, as before, their positions. their intentions, and their strength. Then, with the cood wishes and eratitwlo of his country, lie went off to his home in an Eastern port. The Burglar had made good.

— 'J"ho Quartet Parly.— Tho fouir had no chance to begin with. Horn anxrng thieves, drugged up anyhow, Ihcv soon found their way to gaol. Efforts for thoir redemption .succeeded for a time, and then came reaction with a return to crime. Tho army .swallowed them up in due season, and they arrived in France. Ono of them went out. after four Gorman niper.s, shot three, of them, and had a wrestling bout with the fourth. ITo camo otf victor with a broken wrist and a stab in tho side an mementoes. The former rogue was now .1 1J.0.M. Another of tho four was promoted sergeant, and, all. getting leave together, they succeeded in putting through an enjoyable furlough entirely on the "wafer waggon." What may eventually happen only God can tell; but so far they liavo made good in spito of thoir original and heavy handicap. Britain fce!s proud of her soldiers, and it is possible that the marvellous tales that aro to tell of the waking up of the man within tho breast of tho criminal may yet enable tho State to discover a better solution of tho problem of crime than is to be found in tho gaol and the convict prison. All honour to these men who have in truth come out " of the miry clay "; have given their service, their health, and not a few their lives, as freely and honourably as have the men who enlisted with untarnished reputations. No one can look at these histories without feeling that there is more truth than most are willing to admit in tho great protest against all pessimism—" God made man upright."