A CRIMINAL'S EXCUSE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 452, 13 January 1914, Page 7

A CRIMINAL'S EXCUSE

WOULD RATHER STEAL THAN WORK FOR LESS THAN FULL PAY. George Wilmore, 40, described as a stonemason, pleaded guilty at the London sessions on November 5 to a case of pursesnatching m Brick lane, Spitalfields, and was found guilty of being an habitual criminal. The evidence showed that the prisoner j had been sentenced to 12 months' impriI sonment m 1895, three years' penal servitude m 1899, eight years' penal servitude ■ m 1903, and 18 months' imprisonment m 1910. He was last released from prison on July 11, and three months later he committed the offence to which he had pleaded guilty. During the three months he had made no honest endeavor to obtain employment, and had refused a job as a coal-trimmer m a boat at wages of £2 10s a month and board, which had been obtained for him by a charitable agency. The agency had spent £2 on providing him with an outfit, but after that had been done he disappeared. Later he told an official of the agency that he would not work for anyone except at the full wages of a first-class mechanic. The prisoner said that the full wages of a coal-trimmer were £5 10s a month, and he had been offered a starvation wage of £2 10s a month, which, m the circumstances, he could not accept. It was not giving a man an opportunity of redeeming his character to offer him a starvation Avage. Mr Lawrie, m postponing sentence until next sessions, said he did so because there was a somewhat similar case coining before the Court of Criminal Appeal, and he desired guidance as to the proper length of sentence to pass.