ABETTING CRIME. The Help of the Police.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 224, 15 October 1904, Page 6

ABETTING CRIME. The Help of the Police.

THE kind of justice that requires a crime to be committed in. order to secure its administration is a pretty poor kind of an ailicle. Since the sly-grog selling era in the no-license districts of the colony, an unspeakably despicable class cf men have sprung up, who have to commit the offence they are employed to detect to secure a conviction. The police aver that it is necessary to> the detection of these misdemeanours that the law shall bt broken, that sneaks shall be employed to endeavour by all means in their power to induce people to sell giog, so that they may have the glorious satisfaction of stepping in in their role as guardians of the public mcials, and obtain the conviction of persons of offences to which they were tempted and induced by their own agents. * * * Mr. Kettle, S.M., in a case in which two of these police spies were concerned, said that they were liable to a penalty as heavy as the princi-. pai offenders. But the spies don't spy without authority, either in license or no-license districts. It is conceivable that the police choose mem who, by their habits, would not lcok out of place in a sly-grog shop. The police incite these informers to di ink, to spy, and to be unspeakably low. Their expenses are paid. The drink they take is bought by police mcney — that is, the money of the Justice Department. The public funds of this country are therefore used in these cases to> foster an evil thirst m worthless men, and to lead pt cple to break the law. * *■ * The police are to blame in this miserable business, and it is only to b J expected that ne'er-do-weels should at once close with the offers made to them by the police to take a clean and easy billet with plenty of grog in it. It is just likely that the clean, easy billet for the sneak ia over, and that the police will have to find some means other than that of committing crime to detect it. Mr. Kettle said such evidence as the informers supplied was worthless. It is a precedent that any other magistrate could easily and honourably fellow. Dozens of people in New Zt aland have been convicted on the e\idence of people whom magi*tiates must regard as having committed crime, and it is time that the police found some purer, sweeter way of doing business than by filling up their wretched spies with beer.

The Wellington Physical Training School will hold its eighth annual members' carnival in the Opera House on th'j' nights of October 18th and 19th. Hj« Excellency the Governor will pationise the carnival. Many novel featurej will be included, and four hundred pupils will take pait. School teams wil' give displays. Mr. Binnie Dovey, the instructor, will introduce his blockbalancing feat, and the squad work will show new and interesting features. A bicycle maze and club swinging by two very small girls should be interesting. The management expect to show more advanced work than afc any time during th i life of the school