BURGLAR AS MAYOR

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 85, 13 May 1929, Page 9

BURGLAR AS MAYOR

CIIAIRMAN OF THE BENCH. HOW WRON GDOERS "MAKE GOOD." A11 ex-police inspector, avIio Ayrites in a Lonclon paper, tells the folloAying stories of his experiences Avith criminals : . . Wlien I retired and Avent to liAre ir. a small tOAvn a local minister called 011 me. Reeognition Avas mutual. M e had met tliree times bei'ore, and 011 the last oceasion he had blac-ked both my eyes in liis fight to resist arrest. I luid interrupted him Avhile he was busy burg ling a house. He had seiwed five sentences and had just niissed being cliarged Avith manslaughter. But after tliat lie liacl sIoAvly built up a character, and Avlien he had proved iinself as a lay preacher lie had been ordained. Good luck to him! He Avas doing fine Avork. But if tlie members of his congrcgation knew ! A few days later I Avent for a charabanc trip to a neighbouring tOAvn, and ran up against the superintendent. He had hcen a constable in my division years previouslv. "It's quite decent iiere." he told me. "We've a splendirt Mayor as ehairman of the bench. Tbe other one Avas dreadfnl . . . Here lie is — I'll introduce you." No introduction Avas necessary, ror tlie man had been through my hands-lialf-a-dozen times for embezzlement, receiving etolen property, househreaking, and passing dud notes. But he liad made good. Mayor and magistrate! And the last time I had scen him Avas Avlien he Avas resisting reinoval from the dock and was sliouting to the bench that lie'd like to smasn to pulp the face of every magistrate m tlie eountry. Although I'd have enjoved pulling liis leg nbout that, lie tcok the cue tliat I did not Iciioav him. "I'm all right," said another reforin ed criminal I met casually in a train. "I've been sea'cn years wi-tli Lord X-, as footman first, and uoav bntler." "Lord X?" I echoed. "Didn't you get 18 montlis for burgling his toAvn h.ouse. . - I tliought so ! _ So yon are Avitli him? Does he knoAV *' "Oh, no," he replied, "but his lordsliip often says hc aa'islies he conld lay ins liands on— -on tlie sconndrel " So far I'a'c only run up against tivo women eriminals avIio had reformed. One Avas managing a shop; the other J met in the street. SI10 stopped me— J don't think I Hiould have known her — and after telling me she Avas going Straiglit, she recalled the advice T had given her years before to giA'e up the shcplifting game. She was then only 19, hut had been in prison four times. "I'm married now," she added, and remembering certain uncoinplimentary remarks she had passed about the IV.cial beauty of tbe constahles who had brought her to the station the 'rst time she had been given in charge, I nsked her .chaffingly : "To a conslable?" ■ "Oh, .no," sbe replied; "my husband's a sergeant!"