A wife's action as her husband was being removed to the cells from Hull police court recently so moved the stipendiary that he recalled the man and cancelled the prison sentence he had just passed on him.
It was just a kiss that did it, states the "News Chronicle."
The man, Williem Arthur Altoft, a dock labourer, had been ordered days for assaulting an official of the Unemployment Assistance Board.
As he was being escorted go the cells, his wife, a neatly-dressed woman, stepped up to him and kissed him.
"One of the Best"
Mr. J. R. MacDonald (the stipend diary) saw the incident He called the wife into the witness-box "What sort of a chap is he?" Mr. MacDonald asked her.
"One of the best," the wife replied. "I am sure he would never do an; thing of this sort again."
The magistrate: "You have kept him out of prison. I saw you kiss him. I can't stand that, I tell you frankly."
Mr. MacDonald changed the punish-from prison to a fine of 20s.
Mrs. Altoft said she would pay at the rate of 2s. a week.
Husband and wife left the court together.
Altoft had stated that when he was applying for assistance the official did not seem to pay any attention to him. That put him in a bad temper.
I was not bothering about myself, he said but about my wife and child at_home.
They had had nothing for three days,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.