[Editor: An article about a legal charge being brought against Philip Durham Lorimer in Parramatta. An extract from the “Topics of the Day” section of the Windsor and Richmond Gazette, 28 July 1888.]
[The poor poet has been in the wars]
The poor poet has been in the wars down Parramatta way. At the local police court last week, Philip Lorimer was charged with having been on the premises of Archdeacon Gunther for an unlawful purpose.
He pleaded guilty, and made a rambling statement to the effect that he had no felonious intent. He had been looking for work and finding himself in the vicinity of the Archdeacon’s about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, he decided to “doss” there. He slept soundly, dreamed that he was keeping company with an angel, and woke up to find “the Archdeacon standing over him.”
He earned an honourable, but somewhat precarious, livelihood by writing verses for thirty-three newspapers.
Inspector Latimer stated that accused was found asleep about eight yards from a window by which, on the same night, Archdeacon Gunther’s house had been burglariously entered, but that there was nothing to connect him with the burglary, unless he had guided the burglar to the spot.
He was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, during which period the thirty-three newspapers will be hung up for “copy.”
This Lorimer is certainly a most eccentric fellow. He is a bush bard with any amount of ideas, and is a passable verse-weaver. The beer leads him into strange excesses now and then, and ordinarily he looks more like a shearer from the back blocks than a man who earns his bread and butter by courting the Muse. Poor Lorimer.
Source:
Windsor and Richmond Gazette (Windsor, NSW) Saturday 28 July 1888, page 1
[Editor: Corrected “ununlawful” to “unlawful”.]
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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