INJUSTICE TO WOMEN

Auckland Star, Volume III, Issue 631, 19 January 1872, Page 2

INJUSTICE TO WOMEN

To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sib,—l feel grateful to "Town Hall Mouse " for his kindly squeak.

Mr Broham deserves the thanks o£ all charitable and kindly people for being ready to give first offenders against the Vagrancy Act a chance of amending their ways. When we consider how unfairly this Act treats women, how harshly their sin is judged to what the sin of their paramour is, we can but groan in spirit and say, 11 How long, O Lord, shall the oppressor reign, and the weaker sex be trodden under foot ?

No one will venture to accuse me of thinking lightly of the sin of my poor, frail, fallen sisters.

I am ready enough to stretch out my hand and help to save them from the abyss of wretchedness into which they are falling If there were a Reformatory, I should be indeed glad to see the unhappy girls forcibly restrained, because I believe it would be for their good; but unless they are drunken or disorderly, they should be left at large, as there is no suitable place of imprisonment for such offenders.

There is no system, there can be no system of reformation at Mount Eden, and to send the unhappy wretches there for asia in which they have male partners, or to leave these men at large with only a slight reprimand, is obvious tyrannical injustice. The women know it to be so, and thus Mr. Beckham's homilies fall on deaf or indignant ears. Yours truly, Maet A. Colclough.