SYDNEY BOY’S ESCAPADE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2723, 31 January 1910, Page 3

SYDNEY BOY’S ESCAPADE.

STEALS EMPLOYER’S MONEY AND COMES TO NEW ZEALAND.

fPiiit I’uKfiß Association.! WELLINGTON, Jan. 29. The police have interested themselves in the case of a small boy, 13 years of age, who recently arrived from Sydney, iand who has since wandered about the streets. When taken into custody ho intimated that he had come across to Wellington to stay with his grandmother, a Mrs. Brett, who, ho said, kept a baker’s shop here. Inquiries' were made, but the police were unable to find any baker of that name. Accordingly the boy, Joseph Henry Willian Burnett, was brought before Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., yesterday, and charged with being a child having no means of subsistence, when before the Magistrate the boy stated that lie had been an inmate of the Gordon Institute in Melbourne. He had been licensed out to his father, wfio had placed him in employment: His employer sent him out one day to pay some bills, but he kept the money and did not return to liis employment. Instead he purchased a railway ticket to Sydney, where ho tendered one of the cheques, which lie. said he had stolen, to the Union Company, in payment of his steamer passage across to vVellington. A ticket tvas given him, but the company would not pay out any change on the cheque until' it made further inquiries. However, it was eventually arranged that if the cheque proved right tjhe change would bo forwarded to a certain address in Wellington. The local office of the Shinning Company also received advice regarding the matter, and was asked by the Sydney branch to collect the fare from the boy’s parents, pending inquir. eis regarding the cheque. The Magistrate, after hearing the above statement, deemed it advisable to remand defendant. Pending further development, the boy was removed to the Wereroa Home until the 25th February.