FAST LIFE IN DUNEDIN.

Evening Star, Issue 3659, 13 November 1874, Page 2

FAST LIFE IN DUNEDIN.

To the Editor. Sir —Having been very much interested by your able leader in night's paper on the fast life of young Dunedin, I turned afe once to the column of correspondence on receiving to-night’s issue, bat to my disap. pointmcnt found no protest against your mode of dealing with the evil. I venture to doubt the efficacy and wisdoiq <f your advice to the ladies of Dunedin that they should, by ostracising the fast vounsr men teach them their folly. Not to mention the difficulty of veriying the truth of rumor as regards A or £ being «a little fas*, so as to prevent the innocent being pmusbed with the guilty, I very much fea? that the moral courage of the ladies would break down m the attempt to enforce a rigid adherence to your rule. It has been said by a among writer that under no circumstances are artificial differences in rank and station so much insisted on as where people are all about on an equality. Here then, where, according to the traditional tests of birth and up bringing, such differences are at a minimum, one who for instance can claim remote kinship to a lord as a set-off against riotous living may consider his position in society as secure, A single case of this sort

Would nullify all the good influence of send ing the majority to Coventry. It is to b feared also_ that the proposed punishment would not ir.fl’ct an amount o? pain suffi cient !o countt-rbahmee the pleasure of * gone: fellowship ” Have the imv hers ami daughters of Dunedin done all in fa- ir power to compensate ( lie manyjoung men wh>ae homes are not 1 ore for the plcasurra of in.me life, and the genial hospita'itv to v hid) many of them we e accustom* d 1-fme? Have the ir-dies ever thought of the bli ;:ee that young men living in bote’s or in lodgings have over their sons or brothers ? Is hall now and then, with its undoubted tendency to aggravate the evil comyfiaincd of. a sufficient discharge of duty ? It s- cm a to me, Mr Editor, that if in your capacity of censor morum yon wore to push horn.- such questions as these, you would do perhaps mo e to elevate the public morality than by calling social tyranny { 0 aid your praiseworthy endeavor.—Yours, kc , iTREGRIXE. Dunedin, November 12.