Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1895 — Family Reunion. [ARTICLE]

Family Reunion.

A lawyer in Australia was defending a young man whose record was malodorous. Ignoring the record, however, the lawyer proceeded to draw a harrowing picture of two gray-haired parents in England looking anxiously for the return of their prodigal son to spend the next Christmas with them, and he asked: “Had they the hearts to deprive the old couple of this happiness?” The jury, however, found the prisoner guilty. Before passing sentence, the Judge called for the prisoner’s Jail record, after examining which he blandly remarked that “the prisoner had some five previous convictions against him, but lie was glad to say that the learned counsel’s eloquent appeal would not remain unanswered, for he would commit the prisoner to Maitland Jail, where his aged parents at the present moment were serving sentences respectively, so that father, mother and son would be able to spend the ensuing Christmas season under one roof.”