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Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 916, 15 June 1903, Page 1

At a conference held last week iu Christchurch to discuss the question of small crimes, Dr Syrnes said that the following might serve to illustrate the present evolution of criminals in New Zealand:—A boy, aiilicted with hereditary defects, through drink or other vice in bis parents or ancestors, was rescued by the police from a degraded home, and committed to an industrial school or deformatory. He had neither knowledge of God nor respect for man. He had no idea of order or obedience, or even of work, so that the discipline of the reformatory, though kindly and thoughtful, was intolerably irksome for him, He ran away, and that being the first occasion, he was merely admonished and shut up in a room for a few hours. Ho soon repeated the offence, and was whipped. He then gave himself up to bad habits, and these gained such a mastery over him, that he lost all selfcontrol. When discharged from the reformatory at twenty-one, he was a danger to society. In some cases his bad habits produced epilepsy or insanity, and he was sent to Sunnyside ; but, the asylum being overcrowded, he was discharged from it as soon as he appeared a little better, generally in a few months. Ho then wandered about the country with a swag, and committed various outrages, until at last he was sent to gaol for a year or two. On leaving gaol he returned to the same mode of life with the same result. Beckoning his cost at the reformatory at £SO a year for ten years, and in gaol at £SO a year for ten years, he cost the country some £IOOO, or more, if interest on the buildings were added. After that he often became a burden to the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board. He also bequeathed to his family an unwelcome brood of illegitimate children, of the same degree and type as himself,