A Troublesome Youth.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11975, 19 September 1906, Page 5

A Troublesome Youth.

(Pet United Press Association!.

TIMARU, September li.

A case of more than ordinary interest occupied the attention of the South Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board to-day. An orphan lad named Francis, a cripple, 18 years of age, who had been boarded out by the Board ever since infancy, recently ran away from his home to Christchurch, and there came before the Samaritan Trustees, *to whom he told a very pitiful taTe, and one which, had it been true, would have convicted the South Canterbury Board of gross neglect an*<l inefficiency. The Samaritan Trustees accepted the boy's story without question, and at a meeting of the South Canterbury Board to-day strong objection was taken to thisy£ls it the Trustees had taken trouble toy inquire they would have found that the&boy s story was false in almost every detail. The boy said he could neither- read nor write, and that he had bent* ill-treated in his home at Tiraaru, but the Board had reports before them to-day shewing that the boy had been to school/Tind could read and write as well as oth#'boys in his class, and that in his 1 home he had received very kind treatment, which he repaid by behaviour of the most revolting kind. For this conduct he recently received a thrashing, whereupon he got away by some unknown means to Christchurch. The matter has been brought up in the House, and the secretary was instructed to reply to the Minister's inquiry by sending the reports of the police and headmaster of the Timaru South School.