“HOODED MORALISTS”

Southland Times, Issue 24832, 26 August 1942, Page 5

“HOODED MORALISTS”

Existence In Brisbane Denied (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) BRISBANE, August 24. The chief of the Brisbane Criminal Investigation Bureau, Inspector Jessen, offered to “eat both his hats” if anyone could produce a “hooded moralist.” Inspector Jessen said that after recent complaints about Brisbane orgies he put an extra squad of detectives on city duty. They did not find any “doorway necking,” and certainly did not find any “hooded moralists.” All they did was to wear out good shoe leather. “‘Hooded moralists’ do not exist, and never did exist,” he added. A week-end canvass disclosed that none of Brisbane’s 400 police and detectives had ever heard of “hooded moralists,” and that the fireworks stated to have been used by the moralists were almost unprocurable. A message from Brisbane on August 18 said: A "Moralist Society,” the members of which, In hoods and capes, are now exploding firecrackers to frighten couples in parks and doorways, has been formed here. At a meeting of the society the methods used "to quell the outbreak of vice and sin” were described. Some of the members demonstrated macabre garments used to scare couples. The society is stated to be a secret one, operating “sometimes outside the law, but for the law’s own good.”