THE SEAMY SIDE.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19010, 29 July 1933, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE SEAMY SIDE.

A TAIL-TIED ORATOR. SUDDEN JERK TO SILENCE. (By R. iE. Corder, in London Daily Mail.'") Hyde Park in these abnormally hot days of early summer provides a delightful Whitsun holiday 'for thousands of Londoners, who can enjoy the charm of country and , the glamour of water by travelling a few miles for a few pence. There are peace and the perfume of flowers; the cool tenderness of the shade; the soft languor of the green; and also there are people who abuse, and sometimes profit from, the relaxed routine of the park of parks.

The charge-sheet at Marlborough Street Polloe Court was filled with offences against the general wellbeing of London's pride, famous for its fragranoe, free speech, and mixed bathing. Serpents crowd Into this Eden of the Serpentine, where lovers exchange their vows and handmaids leave their handbags unguarded. The Hyde Park polloe, the Robin Hoods of the green land, slip from glade to glade, watching and waiting for snakes in the grass.

One of these plain-clothes constables told Mr Boyd, the magistrate, that he had watched Francis and Harry, two porters, creeping and crawling in the shadow of the trees, soelcing an opportunity to steal the handbags of girls busy listening to the language of love on a Juno night. Out of the stillness of the night, said the officer, came a voice declaring: “ It is too risky here,” and the handbags of the 'handmaidens were loft ' untouched, but Francis and Harry were arrested. Both declared that It was a case of mistaken identity, and they vvere remanded on bail. • • * • Puok must have inspired Charles of the waved hair, a youth who, bored by the prolonged periods of a political pamphlet, tied a string to the coattails of the orator, and, drawing him swiftly backwards, cramped his style. Mr Boyd bound over the puller of strings, but warned him ho was luoky not to be charged with assault. The pathos and pageantry of the park went on. Young Henry, aged 18, whose slop-father did not love him, went hungry in I o the park afler tramping the slrools. The police picked him up: a bright, brown-eyed boy, trying lo beg the price of a cup of tea. Thorn was nothing against him: he was just a park sparrow, and Iho court j missionrr look him in charge, and I announced that under probation, .ho | had found him a job,