"SHIELDING THE DEAD."

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12465, 26 May 1911, Page 5

"SHIELDING THE DEAD."

A SOLICITOR. SENTENCED

At the criminal sittings at Hobart a. well-known Hobart solicitor was indicied for liavitig-, m April, ISOB, whilst entrusted with £200 trust, moneys by the Rev. Canon Wilmer, rector of Kingston, for investment, unlawfully and fraudulently converted the same to his own use and benefit. The prisoner pleaded guilty. Mr Crosby Gilmore, addressing his Honor m mitigation of. sentence, said] he _ could say with all sincerity, that, serious as the charge was, accused was not .criminal by instinct. In most of such cases personal gain was the motive, hut personal aggrandisement had. had no place m the mind of the accused. What the unfortunate man had tried- to do was shielding, the dead, the reputation of one who had gone, his father, and guarding, if m any way possible, the serenity of the later years of , an aged mother's life. He hail been more sinned against than sinning. His father had practised as a solicitor, ih Hobart for half a. century. To all he passed as a wealthy man, and was alluded to aa such, and wais 'thought, to be so by his family. The father died ih December, 1900, leaving all his property, real and personal, to his wife. In August, 1896, accused had been admitted to practice, and he took over the business of his father upon his death. It was about seven months after that he discovered for the first time the bad state of his father's affairs, and had since striven to retrieve the position, but had. failed to do so. Not an unnecessary copper had been spent by accused on himself. He lived a lonely life with his son. The money he took for himself was merely sufficient to eke out a bare subsistence for himself and son. To the world it was thought that he was . a rich man, and. therefore, his apparently mean expenditure was pointed to with- the finger of scorn. The prisoner was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.