A YOUTHFUL THIEF.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 102, 20 June 1911, Page 5

A YOUTHFUL THIEF.

WARNED OFF PICTURE SHOWS. A lad who bad entered various places and pilfered therefrom, came before Mr. W. 0. Kenrick in the Juvenile Couid at Hawera yesterday. Mr. Sellar (of Halliwell’s office), who appeared for the accused, 'called Di* McDiarmid, who said that the hoy had been under several doctors, including himself. He had examined him on Saturday night, and found that he was suffering from neglected adenoids in the ear, which had affected his whole mental and physical condition. It was a fact well known to medical men that neglected adenoids impaired the intelligence. Fatncr Power said he had known the boy for a little over .13 years, and though ho was hound in ordinary circircumstances to admit hoys' of from seven to eight years of age to their first Communion, he had not felt justified in admitting this hoy up to the present, as lie was not satisfied that be yet understood its significance. The boy’s min'd, prohahly as a result of the state of his hearing, had not developed like the ordinary mind.

His worship exercised his powers under the Juvenile Offenders‘Act, and lid record a conviction, and the hoy was handed to the care of his parents, on their giving an undertaking to make good any losses for which Ids lets had hoon responsible, and that he is kept at homo at night, and is not allowed to attend picture shows, which might have an injurious effect upon a mind like his. His Worship suggested tnfit the hoy should ho sent bo some institution where he could ho educated, if only for 12 months, and advised the parents to do this.