The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1910-06-18 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

POLICE COURT MISSION.  REPORT FOR MAY, 1910.  Our dock cases for the above month are 188, as against 200 for May, 1909, and our dock drunk cases are 126, as against 119 for May last year. 'the Missioner has dealt with 9 out-ofworks, 7 magisterial, 8 institution, 9 probation, 10 juvenile larceny, 2 reconciliation, 3 police, and a great number of miscellaneous cases. Our interviews 'With present and past prisoners have been 281, and 80 fresh cases have been recorded in the ledger. The married man referred to in the last published report for whom no Work had been found, and whose case was one of desperate need, is now happily settled, to the great relief of all concerned. We owe this to the generous interest in the Mission of a friend, who has helped 90 many cases. We had a distressing cralinf attempted suicide during the month. A young woman who was finally discharged to go into a Home. She was taken to the House of Help, and by Miss Derbyshire placed in the " Hollies," a Salvation Army Home, but she attempted her life there, and alarmed them all so much that she had to be brought hack by us, and placed again in the Workhouse...  An old case of husband and wife was up before the Magistrates, and adjourned for me to see them, which was done in the office, and again their differences were settled, and they left me in peace. It is outbursts of the drink habit on the husband's part which cause the trouble, but he has now signed the pledge, and promised to give it up. A juvenile larceny case was passed on to , me to provide a home for, and he has been [ received into Great George Square Home, i [pending his departure later n the year for 'Canada. Mrs. Birt, of the Sheltering • Homes, has very kindly promised to take him in September. There is every prospect of the tasty turning out well. The .spirit of ready obedience is posseAed by him, and this is a good thing in all yonng lives, and indeed in all of as if it be for that which is right and good. We had a sad case before the Court of a young woman who has a respectable home. and yet Who would go on her own wilful way, and finally found herself in the dock on a charge of false pretences. The Magistrates, Alderman Gamlin and Mr. Peter Atkin. took a lenient view of her, case, and passed her on to me to place in a Homea Unfortunately, she had other charges to answer in Liverpool, and was arrested immediately on dismissal, but I wrote to Mr. Goldstone, of the C.E.T.S., and he very kindly watched the case, and etie was put under probation and placed in the Home, of which he is secretary. If .she can only be pulled up now there is eery Prospect of an honourable future: ,*  Another young respectable woman Iris charged with theft from her landlady, and she had no home or friends near. She a-as put under probation, and was provided for as to the future, hat her father has written for her to go home and keep house for him. She is now very happily settled. and will, I feel sure, turn out an excellent ease. _ .  On the whole it has been a very busy Month, and I am glad to report again that most of the out-of-works are settled.  Our Mission has again suffered a very serious loss in the death of Mr. Robert Marquis, who rarely ever missed a committee meeting, and who was most kind and sympathetic in all the work. It will be difficult to fill his place. I sent him a brief note towards the end of last year when he was ill, and it passed from my mind, when one morning on his way to Liverpool he called at the Court and in the most kindly fashion thanked me for this little commonplace act. It was not so much what he did as how he did it, and one was brought back at once to the old Victorian manners and courtesies which, we fear, a younger generation is so apt to forget. Manners still make the man and gentleman, and not money, and it is very refreshing to meet with any act like this described that reminds one of the dear old days of youth, when life perhaps was a little slower and harder, but the manners were better. There was not the awful rush for place and power in which now so many who are weaker get trampled down with no thought of their pain and suffering. and those connected with them. May God in His mercy stand between the nation and the spirit of the almighty dollar, which like the horse leech ever cries "Give," "Give." Not to others, but to me, the dreadful ego which has never been sanctified and sweetened and made generous and good. In learning tlio art of flying may we not forget the art, of walking as those slionld whom God bath made of one blond to dwell upon the earth in peace and good will. A very notorious individual is the Prince and Power of the Air, and really T have no very great desire tn get into his company even on an aeroplane. but One dear to us all walked this earth in the beauty of holiness, and the blessedness of goodness, and left an example that we should walk in His steps. It may mean a cross, a dreadful cross all along the way, and at the end, but the cross shall be transfigured into a thing ot beauty, and of joy for ever. The memnry of Mr. Marquis bles-ad, because his life was beneficent.