The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER, 28, 1885. Social Purity.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1338, 28 November 1885, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER, 28, 1885. Social Purity.

Much surprise and a considerable amount of indignation was evinced in some parts of this colony when the cable announced that Mr Stead had been condemned to three years’ imprisonment for his connection with the Lily Armstrong abduction case. Even those persons who disapproved of the course pursued by the editor of the Fall Mall Gazette were constrained to admit that his punishment appeared disproportionate to his offence, although sober-minded people would naturally refrain from forming a definite 'opinion on the subject until the details of the trial came to hand. But the later news, to the effect that the term of imprisonment was three months, and not three years, placed a different aspect on the whole affair. It was not contended, even by the prosecution, in the preliminary investigation of the case, that Mr Stead had been guilty of anything worse than gross indiscretion, and it appeared incredible that he should be adjudged a worse offender than his confidants —those execrable women Jarrett and Mourey. On the other hand, the penalty actually imposed—three months imprisonment as a first-class misdemeanant —must strike every unprejudiced observer as thelbarcst vindication of justice. Whether the disclosures made by Mr Stead did more good than harm—they certainly did much of both—we are not prepared to determine; nor can we say whether it was philanthropy or some less creditable instinct that induced the proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette to open the columns of his paper to one of the most disgusting publications of the day. And in the eyes of the law the questions.do not affect Mr Stead’s position ; on his own admission he was guilty of abduction, and the law of the country must not be broken for the

gratification of any motive, however good. Were it otherwise, any religious enthusiast, believing the end would justify the means, might take a child out of a family which held different religious views. Although it was not our intention on the present occasion to refer at any length to the notorious Lily Armstrong case, we may be excused if we quote a few remarks made by the presiding Magistrate at the preliminary investigation ot the charges against Mr Stead and his confederates. “A great deal,” Mr Vaughan remarked, “ had been said about motive, and Mr Stead, in a very able paper, had endeavored to show that his motive was praiseworthy. It might have been a lofty and very pure motive, and he might have desired to remove the child from impure associations, but that alone was not a justification for the offence with which he was charged. There might have been a different motive existing in his mind—a desire to get together the material for the concoction of the deplorable and nauseous article which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of the 6th July, an article which had certainly given great pain and sorrow to very many good people and had greatly lowered the English people in the estimation of the foreign nations.

. . . . It would be most perilous if such an infraction of the law were admitted upon such a motive, and|it appeared to him that if the usurpation of authority over the moral and religious life of individuals were not restrained by law there would be an end to the freedom and to the security and to the independence of any family in this country.” But it was to Mr Stead’s sympathisers and imitators in this country we intended more particularly to refer. If imitation be the sincerest flattery then the incarcerated editor of the Pall Mall Gazette is the most lauded figure in current history. From one end of the world to the other a Social Purity movement has been aroused. The ladies and gentlemen who have taken the matter up in New Zealand, are.

QOUUtICSb| wSUuImDIC JJCOpiC y lucu IDO* tives, unlike Mr Stead’s, are above suspicion. But do they know what they are about ? Have they any adequate conception of what they are doing or of what they want to do ? Poverty, we know, is the chief incentive to crime, and, it follows, the morality of a country is very much affected by the material welfare of its people. In New Zealand, happily, the necessaries of life are cheap, they are within the reach of all; the temptations encountered by the poor of Great Biitain are almost unknown to any class of the inhabitants of this more fortunate country. Is it then wise to hazard an experiment which so narrowly failure when made where the evils assaulted were a

thousand times greater? By all means let us have the utmost purity; let us cultivate it by education, example, and social influence; but let the enthusiasts on this subject consider well before they proceed to imitate the extreme measures which have “ given great pain and sorrow to very many good people,” and have “greatly lowered the English people in the estimation of foreign nations.” The individuals and societies that are now clamouring for legislative enactments, and seeking to expose the lowest vices of the people, need not relapse into inactivity. There is much for them to do. The mothers and daughters of New Zealand need education and help; many of those philanthropists now so valient in their search lor a cure, could do much by way of prevention. There are hundreds of girls in this colony, numbers in this town,whose frivolity,conceit, and ignorance place them in most dangerous positions. Their utter incapacity for anticipating results or for appreciating a more excellent way exposes them to a terrible, irretrievable fate. Many of the poor creatures are either motherless or worse; their follies are either unheeded or reproved in a taunting, acrimonious manner—the latter, perhaps, the most pernicious. The fellies of a young girl, of course, need chiding, and it may be very desirable, in some cases, to administer a very severe startling kind of reprimand, in such a way as to give her the impression that if she is not alarmed for herself, her friends, knowing the world better and what she is trifling with, are distressingly alarmed for her. But there is a way of remonstrating with a young person with the greatest earnestness, and at the same time with thorough kindness, in a manner that cannot but leave the impression that her good is the only motive. We need not point out the work awaiting willing hands in this direction. Young people in New Zealand are seldom driven to vicious pursuits ; they are led. If the influence in the other direction were increased, what sin and degredation we have to deplore would be very much decreased. Wise men ne’er wail their present woes, But presently prevent the ways to wail.