SEXUAL OFFENCES. A Menace to the Community.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 85, 15 February 1902, Page 8

SEXUAL OFFENCES. A Menace to the Community.

AS Chief Justice Stout remarked in Court the other day. the subject is an unsavoury one But it must be faced and grappled with No one who reads the papers can fail to perceive that crimes against women and children are on the increase in this colony We have drawn pointed attention to the fact more than once, and suggested sterner measures for coping with the evil And now, once more, a warnmg note peals forth from the Bench itself In opening the criminal assizes at Napier last Monday, Mr Justice Edwards regretted there were on the calendar no fewer than four chaiges of criminal assaults on <nrls. And. in addressing the Grand Jury here in Wellington a week previously Sn Robert Stout pointed out the proportionately large number of sexual offences— five out of a total of twelve cases # * ♦ A similar tale comes from other parts of the colony What is the mfeience? Obviously, that the kind of punishment meted out to this class of offender has little or no deterrent effect upon him The Chief Justice says it should be the aim of the community to try if possible to lessen the proneness to crime If it should be the aim of the community it is still more directly and imperatively the province and the duty of the Bench Upon it rests the primary responsibility •» * * What kind of people are they who commit these cowardly and detestable crimes upon innocent little children and defenceless girls and women? Callous brutes for the most part Fellows m whom the animal instincts are strongly developed The disgrace of a public prosecution — the infamy of imprisonment as a convict — have no terrors for them There is only one way of reaching their feelings, and that 19 through their hide. Only one means of intimidating them into bridling their brutal passions, and that is the fear of the lash

There is no use in being mealymouthed in these matters, or in affecting a sickly sentimentality It is all very well when you are m cold blood to protest languidly against the debasing effect of applying the birch rod or the cat*) -nine-tails to the shrinking human body But. when the blood boils in. indignation at the idea of one's own kith and km -a tender little daughter, 01 a chaste wife or sister— being outraged by some low, ferocious scoundrel there is no disposition to paltei with such offences, or to consider too nicely the feelings of the perpetrators ot them under corporal chastisement • In New South Wales they prescribe the death penalty foi the grosser offences of this class. \\ c do not go quite so far as that Ihe resources of civilisation are ample enough for dealing effectually with this type of criminal without hanging him. There are other very convincing methods of dealing with him And one of the first which ought to be tried is the application of the lash "Spare the rod and spoil the child" applies far more forcibly to these human brutes than it does to the rising generation As a general rule, they are cowards, and there is nothing they dread so much or that has a more restraining influence upon their base and evil propensities, than the prospect of a sound thrashing Let the judges see to it.