NEVER HAD A CHANCE

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

NEVER HAD A CHANCE

In Prison from Eleven Years of Age. Pathetic Appeal by Old Man.

With tears In his eyes and hands outstretohed towards t’he Judge, a grey-bearded old man with a long record of crime poured forth his woes at Exeter Assizes. He was Arthur Mead, 61, labourer, who pleaded guilty to two oharges of house-breaking at Axminster. He had 45 previous convictions reoorded against him. “ I have travelled from one casual ward to another,” he told Mr Justice Goddard. “ The first thing the police do when I get Into trouble Is to dig up my past 'history, things done years ago for which I have suffered over and over again, “ I have had over 40 convictions, and have never onoe been defended by oounßel or had anyone to give evidence on my behalf. I have always been friendless and have gone to prison. " My first conviction was at the age of 11, when I ran away from a workhouse and was charged with absconding and stealing the clothes I was wearing. “ I was ploldng oakum in Pentonyille prison at 11? years of age, and

they sent me back to the reformatory. But what did I want reforming for at that age? Slave at Sixteen. “ There I was a slave until I was 16, when I was discharged with half a crown in my pocket and given a Bible and Prayer Book, I was sent to London with no home and nowhere to go. " The consequence is that I have been in trouble time after time, and I got three years’ penal servitude for stealing a shirt of the value of 3s When I was tramping the road unemployed. Afterwards 1 went to America and remained until war broke out, and I have been in trouble ever since.

“I wish to God I had never come baok. There is nothing for me now. I am down at heel and have been kicked down to that state. Yet the world was not made for a fow, but for everybody." The Judge remarked that mQst of Mead's offences were small, but his record was very bad. He passed sentence of 15 months’ hard labour.