WIDOWS, INDEED !

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 554, 10 August 1889, Page 17

WIDOWS, INDEED !

St Paul had a> kindly word to say for such as were widows indeed ; but in modern times the words are sounded with a rising inflection — " Widows, indeed 1" There are some queer kinds of widows in Auckland, and it is amusing to note how the designing ones impose on the goody-goody newspaper proprietors and get them to start subscriptions on their behalf. , Some are leading notoriously immoral lives, and others, who get charity on the plea that they have been deprived of their bread-winner, have profited immensely by the death of the^r husbands as the latter lived on their wives' earnings when j alive. Not only " Samivel," but Joseph and Willie also, should " beware of the widows !" t

Mr W. J. Napier says the Lord Chief Justice of England has described as " abominable " the practice of laying before the Bench lists of previous convictions of prisoners. In Scotland, the practice is obligatory — some forms of complaint setting forth that " Whereas theft, especially when committed by a person previously convicted of theft, is a heinous crime," etc. And is not the saire principle recognised in New Zealand, by the First Offenders Probation Act placing old offenders on a different footing.

William Garret, the young man who was committed for trial the other day at Napier for obtaining £100 by false pretences, is a son of the late Dr. Garret of Wellington. Two or three years ago Garret was a pushing Labour Agent in Wellington. He afterwards lived at Wanganiii, where he married a hotel-keeper's daughter, but the young lady after a few months' experience left her Garret and went back to her father's hospitable roof.