Untitled

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 990, 21 June 1879, Page 2

At the Post Office and several other public places the curious pttblic may have noticed for the past few days a couple of hand-bills displayed -in black and red or white, headed with the attractive legends in big capitals " LSOO reward" and " L2OO reward respectively. Hie first of these tears the signature "G. S. W hitmore, Commissioner Armed Constabulary/' and the other that of " G. S. Graham, New Zealand Underwriters' Association," and they set forth that the amounts mentioned will be paid by the one or the other respectively "to any person who shall give such information as shall lead to the arrest and conviction of any person or persons concerned in wilfully setting tire to premises in New Zealand. Now, undoubtedly there is a synchronism between commercial depression and fire epidemics which is apt to lead to the deduction that the one stands to the other in the relation of cause to effect, and it is impossible to avoid an uncomfortable feeling as to the possible connection between two such concurrent facts aa that only a week or two ago a Wellingtonpaper mentioned that some 200 carpenters were out of employment in the Empire City and that three days after that statement appeared there was one of the largest tires in Wellington which it has ever seen, and the effect olf which will be to find employment, if not for 200, at any rate for a large number of the knights of the hammer and saw. But whether or not in this particular instance the necessity for finding work led to the inveatiag. of » means of finding it, there is no doubt whatever that a not inconsiderable proportion of the fires which from time to time occur, particularly in bad times, are the work d incendiaries, whom it is most desiraße"to detect and punish. That rewards should be offered for information that maylead to such detection and punishment is sound policy ; but is it not just possible that the thing may be overdone ?_ To us it appears that a large sum like L7OO is an inducement which may lead the unprincipled to the tramping up of false charges, and, as it is not to be denied that there are, unhappily. in all countries and communities a few who. given sufficient temptation, ji re witling to commit perjury or any other offence, are not the rewards indicated aa offered for the detection of one specie 3 ot crime likely to lead to another ?