CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19664, 17 September 1927, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

PUNISHMENTS TO FIT GRIMES [By Leo Fanning.] Punishment of certain offences in a modern democracy such as New Zealand is not remarkably deterrent. The culprit pays a lino or works a, few days for the Crown, and is then free to become a nuisance again to society. lu the Middle Ages a- person who unlawfully “ converted ” a carrot to his own use ran a risk of hanging, and the similar “conversion” of anything worth a few pounds would ensure a swift and sure trip to the gallon's if the thief was caught. This article does not advocate a similar drastic checking of the modern crime of “ car conversion.” ft will merely suggest a, few suitable punishments for vexatious otfcncos which are not sufficiently discouraged by statutes or by-laws. * * * * As tho writer docs not own a car he can, without bias, recommend i worthy penalty for the car converter. This individual should bo tethered for two hours daily during a period of six months in a public place, and any lawabiding burgess should be permitted to try to convert him to any creed, religious or political, provided that such creed is not immoral, blasphemous, or seditious. One such sentence might nut an end to car conversion. * * * » What should be done to the motor cyclists whose exhausts make enough noise to wake up the deadest local body? They should be grabbed by the police, of'course, and hustled into captivity—but what then? An ordinary term of imprisonment seems absurd lor such abominable breaches of the peace. Into their dark colls noisy bombs—not killing, but very terrifying—should bo thrown at irregular intervals, and tho walls should he shaken now and then by safe explosions, and bags of brickbats should be dropped on the rool. * * * * A story in a recent issue of one ot the popular magazines described the method of a reformer who devised a cure for motoring speed lionets. Ho trapped the “ road hog ” by night, gagged him, staked him down on tnc highway, and then drove tho hog’s own ear furiously up and down past tho terrified delinquent, just missing his body by an inch or two. This treatment was said, to be effective. It should be. Is there a Government bold enough to give it a trial in real life? * * * * lu fairness to decent motorists tho person known as the “ jay walker ” who parks himself like a dreamy philosopher or poet in a. diagonal amble across a street—should have corrective treatment. Fiercely goggled, froggylooking motor cyclists, honking, snorting, and spluttering, should drive him along a mile or two of narrow road flanked by precipices, to leach him respect for internal and infernal combustion engines. * * * * Very feeble efforts arc made in some New Zealand towns to enforce the bylaw which requires pedestrians to “ keep to the loft.” AVhito marks were made on footpaths, and the police did strive valiantly to persuade the walkers to be sensible, but the task was too muck for them. The police wore too polite. Sparing women, children, and elderly men, burly constables should have bumped with Ranfurly Shield stronuousness into wrong-walkers, as it by accident, apologising for tho shock tactics thus: “I beg your pardon, but vou are on the wrong side of the path.” *. + * * And the spitter, never quitting, still is spitting, still is spitting, on the paths for evermore. How much longer is this filthy habit to be tolerated? There is a by-law against it, of course, but this by-law, like some other bylaws, has Jong been a byword. 'The situation needs a Mussolini move—the sudden seizure of a hlobber and tho trailing of him over and over the pavement which he spattered.

By-laws proclaim that shopkeepers shall not sweep the paths in front of their premises between S and 9 o’clock in the morning, when citizens are hurrying to work, but the old nuisance goes on. The need is a dictatorial decree for the hurling of half a sack of dust into an olfender’s shop. He would nut ask for the other half-sack. * * * * On a cold day occasionally a little girl may lie seen in the streets, hare and blue to the thighs, in a llimsy garment like an abbreviated ballet dancer’s skirtlet. Tins is not due to parental poverty, but. criminal stupidity, for which the cure should bo a compulsory public parading of the parents through the main streets in similar scanty raiment under police escort. In olden times such fatuous parents would have been whipped probably at the cart tail along a mile or more of public highway, but even without the whipping the semi-undress parade should do some good. ? * * ¥ What grievous suffering has been caused at public dinners by dreary speakers with interminable matter-of-factness as flat as their monotonous voices! As a protection against such dreadiul boring would it not be fair to have a regulation compelling all orating or prating banqncteers to stand on one log (with* the other unsupported) during their harangues? The resultant brevity would not be always the soul of wit, but would he usually welcome. The application of a similar rule to sittings of Parliaments (in all countries), conferences, boards, and councils would do more good than ham. As an alternative, in the case of Parliament, things might be so arranged to enable Mr*Speaker, by_ working an electric switch, to give mild, medium, or full-strength shocks to tedious irritating iterators. * * * ♦ Who lias not been pained by the bad bananas (pears, oranges, apples, or tomatoes) slipped into the bottom of the bag by —— ? That is an offence against statute law, but the law lias apparently become more like a statue than a statute. The proper penalty for that offence should he a stern command (backed by bayonets) on the seller to eat the rotten fruit in public and to pay a fine of five pounds sterling for every ounce of the fraud, Tims would the selling of decayed stuff quickly cease. The same regime should apply to cabbage, fish, oysters, or other alleged edibles. * * * * A Tin Day should be proclaimed against the picnicker who is known to have desecrated a place of beauty with a litter of tins, bottles, paper, and fruit skins On Tin Day the burgesses of his neighborhood would be privileged to heave into his premises old or new

miscellaneous scrap iron. Not ninny Tin Days would be needed to terminate the vandalism. * * * * Wliat is to be done to Urn person next door who never tiros of tooting a flute, or tormenting a saxophone, or working the bass viol into a vicious temper, or putting an endless scries of footling records through a tinny gramophone? Probably in many of these cases the only satisfactory way to peace would bo in a license to shoot. The framing of the conditions of such licenses and specification of arms and ammunition would ho an interesting exercise for Qabinet. * * *- * Other persons for whom special punishments have to be ordered are those who try to get ahead of their turn in queues at ticket offices: those who keep sleepless dogs; those who stop suddenly on a footpath and wheel around sharply without notice; those who stand by their boxes at the post office and slowly go through their mail or loiter on the steps: and those who—but readers can go on with the list, Which stretches indefinitely. These troubles need only the conferring of Mussolini power on Mr Coates for a month or two.