JUDGE AND EX-CONVICT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 148, 25 June 1931, Page 11

JUDGE AND EX-CONVICT

STORY OF TWO MEETINGS OLD BAILEY AND HOSPITAL MERCY AND ITS REWARD. The strangest meeting between a Judge and ex-convict took place in April in a small room at a London hospital, where tho who is seventy-three, was fighting for his life against a dreadful disease. A Daily Express representative visited the hospital and was told the story of tho Judge holding the ex-convict’s hand, speaking words of sympathy, and leaving behind him a great bunch of flowers to brighten the sick-room. Moro than 34 years of the ex-convict’s life have been spent in prison for small thefts, totalling £l4. The Judge was Sir Ernest Wild. K.C., the Recorder of London. Before his visit to tho hospital the last time ho had seen the ex-convict was at Old Bailey. The ex-convict stood in the dock in front of Sir Ernest, waiting for a sentence of one more term of imprisonment. Tho writer proceeds:—“There was a silence. Then Sir .Ernest Wild spoke. It was the voice of mercy. The old man walked out of the dock. This human Judge had given the old man the first real chance of his life to go straight. Now they have met again. “Tears came into the ex-convict’s eyes when he told of the Judge’s kindness. Bunches of flowers had come to his sickroom each day of the week. He did not know who had sent them, but he was full of gratitude to his secret friend. Now he believes the flowers came from the Judge who gave him what he had been waiting for all his life—the chance to do honest work, which he did up to the day he was compelled to go into hospital.” Sir Ernest Wild went straight from his Court at the Old Bailey, after a long day’s sitting, to see the ex-con-vict. It was a few days after an operation in whi«ch tho old man’s life had hung in the balance. The visitor walked unannounced into tho room. Judge and ex-convict recognised each other in an instant—the old man could never forgot the face of the Judge who had helped him. Tho Judge sat down by the ex-con-vict’s hersido and talked to him for some minutes. He asked about his operation, and smiled when the old man told him that he thought ho would bo able to sit up in a few days. Then he showed the flowers he had brought.

“Heaven will thank you for your kindness to me,” said the old man. The Judge could see that he was beginning to find it hard to control his emotion, and with another gentle handshake he slipped out of tho room.

Tho writer handed tho ox-convict a registered envelope. It contained a gift of money which some unknown reader of his journal had sent for him. Ho took tho envelope, and slipped it, unopened, under his pillow. “I’ll give that to tho hospital,” he said gratefully. He was then handed some flowers which another reader had sent. “These will he for the nurses,” he said. “They all •call mo ‘Daddy’—l shall bring them in some flowers of my own when I leave the hospital!”