Juvenile Depravity in Auckland.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1695, 24 July 1875, Page 2

Juvenile Depravity in Auckland.

CHASE BY A DETECTIVE. Examples of juvenile depravity to a fearful extent were furnished yesterday by two young girls, named Annie Armstrong and Katie Johnston, at the police station. The girls had robbed the till of Mrs Binsden of Welle3ley-street, who lodged information at the police office. Detective Grace at once went in search of the young thieves, and saw Armstrong by the Auckland Hotel, who, upon seeing the detective immediately started off at full speed, with the detective pretty close behind. The girl dodged the constable a good deal, and after an hours chase, sue- , ceeded in taking her in a closet in Greystreet He at once took her to the station, and went in quest of her companion in vice and found her in Cook-street. Armstrong was nine, and Johnston eleven years of age. Detective Grace entered the station panting and puffing, and declared that he had not had such a run for many a day, the girl Armstrong ran like a deer. The girls, upon being confronted in the guard-room, commenced to abuse each other in no measured terms, calling each other thieves and vagabonds, and using epithets of a still worse character. The subsequent disclosures made by these children were astounding, considering their years, and showed that in the very heart of this city are the germ.3 of a dangerous clas3 which bids fair to equal the class whirh, in years agone, made such places as Whitechapel and St. Gdes's famous in the annals of crime. The girl Armstrong accused Johnston of stealing a perambulator, when Johnston replied, " Well, what if I did ? You stole the turkey which you dropped at the bank when Constable Winslow was after you, and Winslow would have nailed you only he stopped to pick up the turkey." *' Well Winslow was wise, he would rather 'nab the turkey than me." "Ah, now you shut up, Kit; you stole the keys from the Post-office." " You lie, you wretch ; you know you stole the towel and the dress from the Prince of Wales, and then you thought you saw Sergeant O'Connor in the distance, and you knew he could run well, and so you dropped it in the mud, and afterwards hung it up on the line." " Well, suppose I did ; did not you steal a shawl from a house in Cook-street and tear it up, and throw the pieces into an allotment ?" " Oh, Kitty ! don't say any more. Did not you slip into the shop in the same street and steal three loaves ?" " Well, what if I did ? We had not got any bread at home; the baker did not call that day." And so these waifs of society went on accusing each other of a number of thefts, many of which had puzzled the fertile brain of Constable Axam and otbers who were aware tha1; such depredations had been committed, but who had failed to trace the thieves. The girls also acknowledged that they were frequently in the habit of sleeping out all night under houses, and pilfering whatever they cou'.d ficd in . th^ way. One of the girls owned that she had been to Union-street school, but generally played the truant; that her parents lived in Greystreet, and as the home door was left unfastened, she could go in or stay out all night, as she liked. The girl Johnston was an orphan of Society, having no father that she knew of, and her mother got her living on the streets. One of the girls was sent to the Industrial Home, and the other to St. Mary's Orphanage, where their little hands will be kept from picking and stealing, it is to bs hoped, lor some years to come. The etory of these weeds of society needs no comment.