shelter and stealing were two different things.

"Do you really think this society can tolerate you just walking into stores and shoplifting,'' Acting Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner asked 46-year-old Dennis Edward Steede.

"I'm satisfied there is no other way to deal with you than send you to prison. That way you will have a roof over your head. Clearly that is what you want and that is what you need.'' Earlier, Mr. Warner asked: "Tell me something, what is the relationship between going hungry and stealing?'' "I have to survive. Enough times I'm hungry and no one has anything to eat,'' Steede, of no fixed abode, replied. "I'm homeless. If I sell a jacket, I get money to pay somebody to rest my head when it's cold. I can't get assistance for my health needs if I don't have an address.'' Mr. Warner heard a manager at the Aston and Gunn store on the corner of Reid and Queen streets watched Steede enter the store at 2.15 p.m. on December 7 and browse through the leather jackets.

A short time later, the manager watched Steede leave and stopped him on Reid Street.

Steede was walking with an Aston & Gunn leather jacket hidden under another jacket.

Police were summoned and during a question-and-answer session in Hamilton Police Station, Steede said: "The opportunity arose and I just took the coat out of the store.'' Mr. Warner sentenced him to 120 days in prison for stealing the $649 jacket, in addition to 28 days for failing to pay a $250 fine for having drug equipment.

Steede strongly objected to the drug charge, saying: "That's not me. I have never been caught for drug equipment. I was caught for some drugs back in the early 1970s!''