THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1872.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1153, 9 April 1872, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1872.

The Borough Council of Greymouth, at its meeting on ' Friday evening last,:, was invited by one of its members to -deal with a subject which, however much it deserves to be dealt with by them as private citizens or as public-spirited men, no more concerns them in their corporate capacity than does the question whether the moon is composed of green cheese or 'otherwise. " They are, not)' so far as we are aware, an assemblage of ministers of the gospel ; they are not all magistrates — as yet; and at the Council table, whatever they may be elsewhere, they are not members of a kirk-session. Even if they did claim the powers and privileges of a kuk-seS3ion, this is fortunately not the age when their claims, to exercise espionage and to impose sackcloth and "the stool" upon sinners, would be recoguised. That time has gone bye — gone bye in countries where the assumption of priests to exercise powers in civil matters only came to kirkrsessions as an inheritance from times in Hen the duties of the civil magistrate and the minister of religion were sadly confounded ; and in this new country, and at this time of day, we are not prepared to permit such confusion of offices to again arise! Supposing the Councillors to be simply a corporation of citizens, as they are, and to have no affinity with priest or presbyter, they lack the power to deal with "social evils" of one kind or another, except within. a very narrow compass, and these powers concern more the improvement of our physical condition, in relation to streets, drains, lights, and last, not least, taxes, than they do the preservation of "the morals of the people." It was plainly, therefore, a mistake' on the part of Councillor Moore to, bring forward the motion which he proposed on Friday last, :aa to the finding out of owners, agents, and occupants of houses used for immoral purposes, and the Councillors who condemned the motion, though they did not oppose the spirit in which it should have been and may have been dictated) ;did right; in : doubting their capacity, to deal with the subject. They will ntf doubt find on a future occasion, when the subject will be again referred to, that they are correct in their doubts as to their powers, to say nothing of the impolicy of exercising even such powers , as Councillor Moore presumed them to possess. But though this may. be the case, ,and though the motion may be ultra vires, the impropriety of bringing such a subject forward as part of the proceedings of a Borough Council, may, for the moment, be forgiven if it should lead to a permanent change in the public feeling as ii at present exists and is exhibited in relation to the presence in our midst, oh a scale of comparative magnitude, of what is known as the " social eril." Thesbbjeot is one upon which people have,

in the past, been mealy-mouthed to a degree ; and the consequence is that at the present moment, and among the smaller towns of the Colony, Greymouth frenjoys or suffers f^am' an unenviable re-, putation as a locality in which the strumpet and the bully are too often distinguishing features of the streets and our pwbiio places- of resort. The extreme saint and the aggrieved sinner may be. pleased to characterise this as a libel, and to say that the place is no -worse than others of its size or of the same promiscuously congregated population. Neither may it be ; but there are few places in which people having any pretensions to propriety of conduct or decency of behavior are so frequently put upon the same level, in social standing, with those who obviously belong to the class " abandoned." It is too well-known to be the custom — and it is a custom which astonishes even those who come from other parts to contribute to the public entertainment — to admit to the "select" seats in our public halls those whose attire, apart from any professional acquaintance with them on the part of the police, door-keepers, or ticket-takers, indicates them to be persons with whom no modest woman would care to associate. It is the same at race-meet-ings or, other occasions of public assemblies—the " best seats" are accessible to persons whose characters, are notorious, and matrons and their daughters are affronted by the presence of persons whose proximity they cannot ignore, and whose association with them in this way, through the action or inaction of the managers of such meetings, is an insult and an injury. The only exceptions, we presume, are the occasions of church services, the attendants at which, we imagine, are not often distinguished by rouged cheeks, gaudy garments, and a superfluity of feathers and "front." There are other instances, which it is not necessary to particularise, in which unseemly and improper, though not unprofitable, deference is paid to a class to wlioni 'no deference-? whatever is due, except on the part of the benevolent and charitable, who, we are sorry to say, are not often found exercising these virtues towards their fallen and probably not irreclaimable fellows." The proceedings in the Resident Magistrate's Court occasionally reveal how some who, seemingly separated from them socially, are intimately associated with the class referred to, as providores of houses, dress, or drink. To check the consequences of this too familiar and friendly recognition of the "social evil," there are required, however, not crocodile lamentations or Quixotic factions :at the ' table of the BoTough Council, but the infusion of a different spirit in the community generally from that which now prevails. The police even are powerless—^except in cases, and we presume there cannot but be such cases,' in which peaceable people have their quiet disturbed, or the value of their property destroyed, by the prevalence of scenes such as usually accompany a laxity of morals and a free consumption of " hocussed " grog. All the police regulations which could be invented, whether with the object of suppression, repression, oifpermiasion, will fail in their object, as they have failed elsewhere, compared with the exhibition of sound feeling on the part of the public towards those whose presence is a scandal, and towards those who in any way sustain that scandal. It may have been, for all we know, with a view to' el cite this feeling that Councillor Moore broached a disagreeable subject on Friday evening, and had he done so in a Christian spirit in the conventicle, or as a social reformer on the platform, he would deserve some credit ; but by his motion before the Borough Council he has displayed such a mistaken conception of what constitutes a proper situation for action in such a matter, and so much of the spirit of Paul-Pryism and petty tyranny that, instead of being recognised as a Miss Eye in pantaloons, he is more likely to be confounded with Bumble . the Beadle. The Borough Councillors have not, as a body, been created the custodians of our morals, or our father confessors, and as a body they should deal with what comes properly within their province. A Society for the Suppression of Vice would constitute a more suitable sphere of action for all who are animated by a desire to diminish the numbers and the evil influence .of a , class to whose ranks too many of the fair or the fraij are being added ; and if Councillors or, ciitizens are sincere, and discreet as well as sincere, in that desire, they will rather favor the use of such an association than . the abuse of the prerogatives of our Borough Council. If Councillor Moore will condescend to read the Westmimter Review (a copy of which is at his command) on " govermental experiments in controlling" that evil of which he complains, he will probably discover that, while as a man he may be right, as a Councillor he is decidedly wrong. > '■