IN MEMORIAM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10303, 7 November 1911, Page 2

IN MEMORIAM.

PETER PENDER. (By ONE WHO KNEW HIM.)

The first time I met Mr Inspector Pender he frowned at me. That was in the Police Court some twenty years ago. Afterwards when he understood that I was neither a knave or a fool, but really wanted to be helpful, he smiled at me and our friendly intercourse from that time till he passed over the "Great Divide" has been of the best and the kindest. His venerable old age forbids the clamour of grief or rebellious murmuring 3, but we cannot afford to lot that fino personality pass away without some affectionate'and tender reminiscences of it. To me the most striking features of Mr Pender's inward life were: deep religious feelings (broad as well as profound) and tender-heartedness. The character of his external life was a remarkable union of dignity and simplicity. No show of uniform or glitter of medals ever made that man strut, no exclusiveness of office ever stopped him from the smallest acts of kindness. Olio evening, after the fall of darkness, ho found a young girl of good upbringing, trying to end her life in tho River Avon. Tho old story of wrong and grief—the old passionato struggle to end it all in the river's embrace. The Inspector took the girl gently and half secretively to tho house of a "Rescue Worker," and hushed up the story by sternly bidding that lady never to divulge the poor girl's name or family. On another occasion—it was a Carnival "Week, [ remember—he sent me a message by one of the detectives that a certain woman—alas I of most notorious evil report—had left Mount Magdala and was loose on the town. He wanted to save her. Could I help. " Tell him," I replied, "to find her and at any hour of day or night I will rccoive her," and with acquired wisdom, I added, "be she drunk or sober."

With a pleased grin the messenger retired. That night a little past midnight a cab drove up to my door. The Inspector and Sergeant D. brought mo the derelict. It seems that this man, head of the Christchurch Police, himself went down to a house of wellreputed infamy, pleaded with the woman, half sternly, half tenderly, urged her, not in the name of the law, but by tho love of God, to adjure her evil ways, to repent and to come back to her religion and her womanhood. And it was all done with such an air of simple dignity. How many young girls owed their salvation from ruin to liis kindly efforts no one but those who worked with him will ever know. In one short year he helped me to ferret out of infamous surroundings eleven girls under fifteen. He was never in too much of a hurry; never too closely bound by clerical chains. Ho could always listen and always help. May God reward him.

There are men in this toivn, grown staid and steady with the weight of years, who ewe their present lives of happy respectability in the oves of their fellow citizens to Peter Pender's good advice, manly warnings, Christian protection. Again, may God reward him. Ho i gone. A fervent Catholic, true t tho bp- J traditions of his Ohu rcti. a lrjal officer, aT manly man, a tru's iJhcktitn; we feel sure that he has co his rest in the hands of God,'