A NEW ZEALAND VAGRANT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 3456, 26 March 1872, Page 3

A NEW ZEALAND VAGRANT.

« A deaf and dumb vagrant named Henry M'Farlane lately applied to the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum Committee, and stated that he had come from New Zealand in the steamer Gothenburg; that the superintendent of the province of Wellington had paid iiis passage ; and that he had left hie wife and family there. The Telegraph publishes the following particulars of this personage : — " The deaf and dumb man, Henry M'Farlane, who on Monday last was arrested at the Hobson's Bay Railway terminus charged with vagrancy, was brought before the City Police Court yesterday, on remand. The Rev W Moss and Mr Robert Hogg, the teacher in the school for the deaf and dumb, were in attendance, to communicate the nature of the evidence to the man. Mr Hogg deposed that he knew M'Farlane twenty years ago, in Edinburgh, where his (Mr M'Farlane's) father was one of the directors of the institution there. He was well brought up, but Mr Hogg had seen nothing of him till he came to the asylum on the St. Kilda road a short time since, and said he had left New Zealand, where his father was, and .had come over to Victoria to look for work. Mr Hogg had given him money at times, and had written out a statement, at M'Farlane's request, setting for that he wanted to get back to New Zealand. With this he hoped to raise enough money by subscription to take him back. M'Farlane had been brought up fas a carpenter, his father was o man of means, and was, Mr Hogg had been told, a member of the New Zealand Legislature. In reply to the Bench, Mr Hogg said M'Farlane could not be taken into the asylum, for men who had been previously admitted similarly circumstanced to M'Farlane had. corrupted (he children in the school. Through Mr Moss, M'Farlane said he lived bj r the subscriptions he got, half of which he lived upon, and half he intended to keep to take him back to New Zealand. The Mr Patterson who wrote the begging letter found on M'Farlane was in court. He was also a deaf and dumb man, and worked at Fulton's foundry. A deaf and dumb coach-builder also gave M'Farlane a bad character, and said he slept about streets, and often gotdrunk. M'Farlane said he had been ruptured lately by lifting a heavy log in a timber-yard, and when released from the hospital, where he had gone for treatment, the doctors had told him he must not do any hard work for a long time. Dr Neild examined the man while the court was sitting, but only found marks of an operation in the abdomen ; but this would not hinder him from working. The Bench sentenced the man to six months' imprisonment, with hard j labor; but intimated that if his father would support him, means would be taken to get him out of prison and to send him to New Zealand.