A WILFUL GIRL.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 12 June 1919, Page 3

A WILFUL GIRL.

" She is an abnormal child spoiled by kindness," the Proba- j tion Officer told the Magistrate at Auckland Police Court the i other morning, in referring to a girl of 16 who had been apprehended for vagrancy. The subInspector remarked that the girl was the daughter of respectable parents and had a good home. Yet she had been running wild on the streets. The Door of Hone people could do nothing with her, and her father described her as "beyond control." The Probation Officer suggested that the girl should be sent to the Salvation Army Home, and the Magistrate asked her whether she would be prepared to go to that institution. She said she would rather go to goal. But after trying what gaol was like for a few days (on remand) she reckoned she'd prefer to go to the Home. Her's is, of course, a somewhat extreme case but it is to be feared that there are a good many young .people in Auckland, of both sexes, who if they have not gone quite so far as the girl in question, are following in her j footsteps. Such cases, thirty or forty years ago, were comparatively rare. In those days young people were much more strictly brought up, and were taught to honour their parents. The proportion of boys and girls who honour their parents to-day is a very small one. Too much severity in the bringing up of the young is a mistake, but too much indulgence is a greater mistake, and once a child ceases to respect its father and mother —-as it is apt to do if overindulged —it is all up with it.