A Reform Wanted this Session.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 6, 20 March 1914, Page 3

A Reform Wanted this Session.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —One cannot help being alarmed by the number of assaults on women, and especially young female children, which are constantly being recorded in the newspapers. In Wellington recently I noticed that at the Supreme Court there were four separate cases of indecent assaults on children. The ages of these ‘ victims (one was just were 4 1 /*} years, 8 Their assailants were convicted and sent to gaol ; but they will all be free men in about six years’ time ; one of the men had been convicted before for the same offence, his second victim L being the little girl aged 4 YI years; and this man will bo free again! <■ In a splendid country like ours, populated by a superior class of people, and noted for its advanced legislation, the increase in the ■'»’irnber of these assaults is a re and a reflection on for the protection of womanhood, and future motherhood. Without a doubt our laws for their protection are obsolete when compared with laws of other countries; even the English law is in advance of ours. ■ In certain States in America, I Australia, and South Africa (and , recorded in the laws of the punishment for indecent assault on females is the death penalty. He of Nazareth also seems to have inferred tHat the penalty for offending.children was death. If the severity of the laws in above countries is causing the I scum of their population to drift to New Zealand it is plainly our duty to place our laws for [ these cases on a par with the laws of those countries by urging our legislators to make the f death penalty the punishment for these horrible, inhuman * unnatural assaults which ; commented on in our parliameiu. a few years back. It is said that children asy saulted are physically, and in

| some cases mentally, ruined for f life, apart from their innocence being blighted, and perhaps 1 ’t with a loathsome disease there are many cap' ~ not reported, as aims’ parents, through fa .iy pride, shrink from publicity and police court proceedings. In one N. Z. city I am told that a Mission Sister who keeps a day school for little children had r the police to order away vs who came round with iu- " ben the school came out. i Long sentences harden pri- > soners ; flogging is a dead letter owing to ” health reasons.” * Abolish the death sentence for [ murder, if you wish, as it was k abolished for robbery ; but those k crimes are not on the same plane ft as by these human Ba ghouls on defenceless children of K, the poorer classes, who are lured K away with a few lollies. ■ . Womanhood was nil safe in New South Wales until capital punishment was brought in.

During the South African War capital punishment prevailed. Juries on these cases would perform a real benefit if they recommend capital punishment to be placed on the Statute Book, because a brutal crime deserves brutal punishment. When visiting America recently I enquired if there were many of these assaults recorded, and I was informed that such cases were rare. Should the Government refuse to consent to the death penalty for such criminals they should at least be declared habitual criminals, Yours, etc,, A NEW ZEALANDER. March 9tli, 1914. Wellington. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Will you kindly allow me a little space to most sincerely compliment your reporter upon his very fair and full report and kindly criticism of the various performers at the recent Presbyterian Church Concert, but I think that —perhaps inadvertently —it must have escaped his notice that the entertainment did not close with a chorus, but with the singing for the first time in the Miners’ Hall of the National Anthem, most of the audience standing according to the good and universal British custom, thereby showing that Loyalty to our King and Country is not extinct, and that there is still left in this Nazareth of ours a goodly number of men and women true to the glorious old Flag. God Save the King. Yours etc., R.J.