Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1880.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 238, 7 October 1880, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1880.

The growth of what, for want of a fitter name, is known as " larrikinism," is becoming a very serious evil in all the large towns of the colonies. Iv Nelson we are comparatively free from ifc, but in the larger centres of population in New Zealand it appears to be decidedly ou the increase, while in Melbourne it has reached such a pitch tbafc in many instances the police are quite incapable of dealing with it, and it frequently happens that offenders who richly deserve punishment escape, and it is found impossible to bring them to justice. This evil has been of growth so gradual thafc it was scarcely noticed until it had struck its roots so deep that to get rid of it now without adopting the severest measures is almost an impossibility. And yet much may be done to prevent its spreading to those who are as yet uucontaminated. With the parents of the youths who are now growing up around us there rests a very weighty responsibility, and one of which they cannot divest themselves. Let them therefore be prepared to accept ifc, and to use their a utmost vigilence to prevent their children being included in the ranks of those who wore thus alluded to by Judge Richmond in his charge to tho Grand Jury in Auckland, on Monday last : — *" The records of our criminal courts show only too plainly that we are allowing to grow up amongst us a class — a very numerous class —of depraved boys. These wretched youths are precocious imitators of all the vices of grown meu. Drinking, gambling, debauchery in every form, are their pursuits at an age when no natural propensity in a healthy human being, with a Bound mind in a sound body, would prompt to such indulgence. The healthy boy is rarely or never given over to animal self-indulgenco. Tho natural activity of youth is against it. But theae young fellows ante date their manhood, and consume their strength in vice. It ia their false notion of what is manly. The mind and not tbe body is the source of this kind of wickedness, and the evil might bo subdued were it possible to subject these boys to a proper discipline. The great demand for labour and the high wages given to mere hoys, who, in older countries, would be serving a severe apprenticeship, is, without doubt, a principal cause which has called this class into existence. In this, as in so many other things, we are, to use the language of a poet who was also a profound philosopher, "feeling the weight of too much liberty." How to get at the evil is a problem for statesnaent and philanthropists. The class is beyond the reach of school or church as at present organised. Penal discipline remains, but is a sorry education. It is the only one

which erm, at present, reach the vicious larrikin. Then our moans of penal discipline iivo, as we all know, sadly imperfect, and the Judge, iv passing a long sentence upon a youth, has to dread that he is introducing him to associates who will destroy all chance oi: reformation. There is no part, gentlemen, of my duty which causes me, session after session, so much doubt and pain as the mode of dealing with this class of juvenile offenders. To pursue the subject which is opened by these remarks would detain you 100 long, and wo '.iid, moreover, raise a number of debateable questions in relation to public polie3'> morals, and even religion, not fit for discussion here. I must content myself, therefore, with indicating this social evil in the hope that it may attract a larger share of public attention that it has clone. Of course, 'gentlemen, you will sec that I have not been speaking of the mere pranks of boyhood. However annoying these may be now aud then to those who suffer from them, they are, as Dr. Stuart has lately been observing, merely the overflow of animal spirits natural to boyhood."