MELBOURNE LARRIKINS.

Evening Star, Issue 3686, 15 December 1874, Page 3

MELBOURNE LARRIKINS.

Mr Justice Barry has made a severe examples! two young ruffians belonging to the larrikin class for an assault and robbery committed on a miner from Queensland, who. afttr spending four or five pounds in treating the prisoners and two of tbeir companions, was garotted by one of them, and robbed and maltreated by another. His Honor sentenced both the culprits to six years’ hard labor ou the roads in order that the punishment might strike terror into tbeir associates, as we believe it will do, for the decision of the Acting Chief Justice excited a visible consternation among the personal friends of the convicts. On tbe same day, however, an act of cowardly ruffianism was investigated by a full Bench of Magistrates at the Fitzroy Police Court. A larrikin named Brown insisted upon being treated to drink by an elderly man named O’Rourke, who was wending his way homeward from a place of worship on Sunday last. On his refusing to do so, he was thrown violently on the ground, by which his kneecap was injured, and his person otherwise bruised. The case was fully proved, and the youmr ruffian was suffered to escape with the nominal fine of five shillings. The disproportion of the penalty to the offence ought to be glaringly apparent even to a suburban bench of magistrates; and if these gentlemen have such a dread of the larrikin class that they shrink from visiting them with the punishment they deserve, why do not they commit them for trial at a superior court ? The evil is one which can be repressed only by strong measures, and it is assuming such alarming dimensions that the authorities ought to be prompt as well as firm in putting it down.