The sting of the sentence consists in the fact that the prisoner was declared to be a habitual criminal.
But none of the prisoners who have so far been declared in New Zealand to be habitual criminals - and Amy Bock is the first of her sex to be brought within this category - more richly deserved this doubtful distinction than she did.
The appeal that was made on her behalf by her counsel was entirely unimpressive in the face of the damning record of her past life.
Any sympathy that has been expressed for her - and many weak people, we fully believe, have regarded her, even since her recent heartless exploit, as a fit subject for sympathy - has been misplaced and wasted.
Her whole career for many years past has been one of deceit and fraud.
She is a clever woman, but her lack of principle and of honesty has been not less marked than her possession of brains has been.
In the intervals of liberty she has enjoyed when she has been released after serving a term of imprisonment she has insinuated herself into the favour and good graces of many people, but invariably, or almost invariably, there would seem to have been a criminal purpose at the back of her plans: either that, or else she is subject to uncontrollable impulses of criminality which have driven her to the commission of the numerous acts of deception that are registered against her name in the police records of the Dominion.
The probability is that she is a bold adventuress rather than the helpless victim of waves of criminal propensity.
In whatever light she is to be regarded, however, it must be felt by every right-minded person to be imperative that society should be protected from the operation of her ingenuity.
• The Lawrence-Roxburgh Railway League is agreed that a light line of the existing gauge from Beaumont to Coal Creek will meet all the requirements of the district for many years, and that if the Government insists on a guarantee the settlers throughout the district, with the assistance of Dunedin, are prepared to make this guarantee good on the Beaumont-Coal Creek section. - ODT, 28.5.1909.
