The Oamaru Mail. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1245, 14 April 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1880.

Ix a bv-street, within a few paces from our chief thoroughfare, are two establishments which are termed, for convenience sake, boarding-houses. What we mean is, that they are most accommodating—that one may within their walls—metaphorically speaking—have anything " from a needle to an anchor." Their demeanor—or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say misdemeanor —is closely allied to that of a free lance. Dining daylight they profess to afford domestic happiness ; after nightfall—although of .this they make no professipns—they are the haunts of the houri, the bacchant, and the sensualist. The best chandeliers are lighted, the "slaveys," with a celerity that "would make Lingard jealous, slij) out of their scrubbing duds and into their brilliant vestments, having first laved their begrimecl faces and hands. Sally becomes Sarah, and smiles upon Jack—who has also become John—as though she was quite aware of it. No one could reasonably object to this prelude—nor could anyone object to the dancing which follows, provided it occasioned no violation of law and order. It is the strum of "that dreadful piano," the lashing into a frenzied fury of the historic crem'ona, the screeches, the cursings, the blasphemings, that disturb the tranquility of the small hours, and the invisible finale producing its too visible and demoralising effects upon the revellers and the community that are decidedly objectionable. Female beauty and physique do not long stand the racket of such an existence. A female star suddenly appears and as suddenly sinks. Graduation for a few months in such a school gives her a soiled appearance th.it, alas, is not so readily removed as the blackness of honest toil. She is then ready for removal higher up the street. Here is a field for reform—a luxuriant one in which prostitution and scoundrelism of all kinds grow with a terrible spontaneity. Where are our vaunted laws 1 Is Oamaru to become a huge immoral nursery for the Colony 1 Are our police and magistrates helpless 1 To one who has resided in the law-abiding communities of a law-abiding nation, it seems strange that this tide of iniquity is allowed to flow on. How is it 1 ? The Jaw may be faulty, but the Municipal Council and the Bench have been lax and the police force insufficient. The law should enable tho Council to grapple with this growing evil, and we think that it is the Council's fault that it is not so. The Council should refuse to grant a license to any proprictor or proprietress of a boardinghouse when it has been proved that lie or she has not complied, and is not likelv to comply, witli the law laid down for the control of such places. The freedom that the proprietors of some of the Oamaru boarding-houses have of late enjoyed, is causing a return of their normal disregard for anything but money-making. It is time for another raid- Tlie police, it appears, cannot catch them in the act of selling intoxicating liquor, or otherwise violating the law. The engagement of informers is the only available expedient. But who will undertake the engagement of these men ? The publicans have, in protection of their own interests, done this in the past, but they appear to be disinclined to risk a repetition of an expensive experiment, which might only end in the escape of culprits through a flaw in an Act. or the smartness of a lawyer. We wish for the sake of the public that the police could see their way clear to moviiig prominently and decisively in | this matter. Everybody is morally j certain that the law is being broken even- minute in the day in these abodes of infamy and licentiousness of every conceivable description. If the police ' cannot interfere under such circumstances, there is something radically wrong somewhere, and it should be sought out and rectified.- The public, the publicans, the police, and the Bench should combine to put down the hoarding house evil at any cost.