MELBOURNE LARRIKINISM.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue XIV, 3 April 1879, Page 4

MELBOURNE LARRIKINISM.

A correspondent of the Sydney Town and Country Journal writes:**I find Victoria is, socially, in a deplorable condition. Outlaws hold whole districts in terror, while the streets of her capital are infested by gangs of roughs o*Ued, facetiously, " larrikins." Larrikin is l misnomer. It was first applied to boys who merely misconduct ibemielves In the street*. A polie^ao in court, when aeked once what cbarga he preferred against two lads, replied that they were "larrikins" i.e., playing. The word soon got into peDeral use, hot it could never have been intended to apply to the infamous, hulking scoundrels who nightly tske possession of street* leading from tbe city into the suburbs. These villain*, whose ages iwnge from fourteen to twenty, and often far beyond that, spom possessed by tbe very devil. Th^y thirst for notoriety an<] are choke full of cursedneep. Stone throwing, insulting, jostling, and often robbing passers toy, are their Bmueementß, and assaulting tbe police their delight. They helong chiefly to thß factory clfifis. Some of the daily police reports give chocking details of their brutal ferocity and lawlessness, and th 3 frequency of their aßßsolta points to a powerful organisation. They have leaders and officers, nud a pound to pay fines where necessary, or to assist and comfort such of their members as are sent to gaol. It is difficult to find a remedy for this state of things, which is a social nicer. Education, preaching, severity do not seem to do anything, and no institution, neither ibe school, tbe church, nor the law, is able to cope with it. It is easier to find a cau&e than a remedy. This larrikiniern is misdirected energy, animal life, and spirits tunning riot Tbe people of this colony are very energetic. Larrikinism is in a great measure the outcome of parents failing to exercise proper control over their children. There is none of the reverence for the father which is so characteristic of the French people, \ with whom a child, even when an adult uao or wcmftn, is amenable to the father's control, and cannot marry or dp anything of importance, socially, without bis consent. But control is not co easily exercised in this colony, *»h»n children commence so early in life to acquire ft semi-independence by their ability to earn a living and where the climate, nearly all the year round, offers attractions oat of doors superior to any pleasure to be obtained round the tbe hearth or in the family circle, Our homes, too, are not like those of older countries. Another fearful incentive to larrikinism is the deplorable state of social life in colonial cities. The law is a mighty power. True, but its direct application by the police is so one-sided as to bring the institution Into oootempt. In fact, tbe power of the poiioe is in a great measure used to oppress, and the lower orders have got to regard the members of it as their natural enemy. The poor match seller, the humble hawker or j eostermonger, tbe belpless tippler, is treated with undue rigour and ft verily, but the wealthy sinner is protected, or, at any rate unmolested. Successful vice is, in fact, rather encouraged than ■oppressed, while waywardness and tbe results of moral infirmity, inseparable from a want of success in life, poverty, and a lack of good training are unduly punished. Thus, we find gambling carried on openly, while its iocolcators and praotisers wear fine linen, ride in chariots, and live on the fat of the land. The bootmakers can block op . tbe public thoroughfares and openly break; the law with impunity, while a costermonger has only to take bis barrow too near the kerbstone, to be incontinently prosecuted or imprisoned. Rich harlots may and do own whole blocks of buildings and devote them to their vile trade, while the starving courtezan is "run in" for merely walking the ■treets. It is not possible to get men in tbe force who will exercise a wise diecretiou and deal with the foibles and vices olf the poor like doctors treating a disease, but (it seem really as if tbe members of tbe police are not on the whole, men fitted for their positions. Then lately a very objectionable phase or law-breaking has taken firm root in oar. large communities, vis: a revival of prize-fighting. The police seem Bitterly powerless to stop tbe sport or to punish those practising it. Tbe larrikins go out in hundreds nightly to play Kellys or "Foley and Hicken, because tbe successful example is under their immediate observation. The great (?) men whom they imitate •re not restrained nor punished, then . why should they, though humbler and leci guilty, be amenable to the law? la it a wonder that they regard the poiioe ' •i oppressors, sad, a« they did lately, to taunt a constable that he begged to be sent out after tbe bushrangers ? If the heads of Jtbe police are not dealt with by the legislature they, should Joe impeached ai the bar of: public opinion by the well-conducted fluid peaceable! of the oommunity.