Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 853, 23 December 1929, Page 8

Citizens Say

(To the Editor.)

PRISON CONDITIONS

Sir,— , there be the slightest element of truth in the statements made in The Sun of Saturday about the living conditions in Mount Eden Gaol, it is time there was a complete overhaul of the system under which our criminals are confined. After all, criminals are human beings, but if they are subjected to conditions described by your correspondents, they are treated just like wild beasts. These documents are the greatest indictment of out prisons system so far, and go far tov/ard justifying what the prison chaplain, Mr. Charles Chandler, said on the eve of his departure for Australia. If the authorities wish to increase the criminal population of the Dominion, they are going about their task in the right way; but if they are anxious to make a better system for the Dominion as a whole, and to ensure that prison life is in reality n, deterrent to crime, they should treat men as men, and not as animals. No Prisons Department has tire right to endanger the men’s health by permitting bad sanitary conditions I think the suggestion of one of your correspondents, that a surprise visit should be paid some morning at 7 o’clock, is a good one. Certainly an inquiry is urgently needed—an inquiry m which the men as well as the authorities are allowed to give evidence on oath. HUMANITY.

SOME PERCENTAGES

Sir,— For an evangelist to visit New Zealand for the express purpose of informing us that the 99.9 per cent, of scientists who accept Evolution do so through *‘tlie rottenness of their mentality, morality and veracity,” is a sufficient indictment of his own intolerant and intolerable ignorance and bigotry Had he hurled these epithets at the evangel of such of his colleagues as Aimee Semple Macpherson, his strictures would receive general endorsement. Hr. Oliver wonders why the scientists of the Dominion (who are also Evolutionists) do not challenge him (brave fellow—“ I’ll stand up to any bunch of evolutionists on earth”). For my part I think it would be a good thing if they showed up his woeful ignorance of the subject he essays to discuss and dismiss, but I am aware that some of these gentlemen think it better to ignore such blatancy when they realise it passes muster only with a small minority of rabid funda-

mentalists and causes but laughter among those with any pretence to culture, education or reason.

Beally this wholesale condemnation that great army of scientists past and present, whose sole desire in the main has been to discover and verifv truth (for a remuneration far below that of a successful evangelist) is truly nauseating. The scientist freely expends his brains in the service of humanity, the evangelist in hampering the. scientists’ efforts. Imagine anyone with the slightest pretension to knowledge of scientific evolutionary works, mouthing such absurdities as “No snail on this earth ever gave birth to a reptile,” “I challenge the world to show where anv monkey gave birth to a man," “Have you ever heard of a lowly onion . . . deciding to become an orange and climbing an orange tree to do it?” These thing's naturally tickle the ears of groundling fundamentalists, but in others they cause pity or laughter at the spectacle of Ignorance baiting Knowledge, clown fashion.

Piling absurdities one on the other Dr. Oliver credits scientists (for they are all Evolutionists with a few negligible exceptions), with 99 per cent, mouth and 1 per cent, brains. Judglng by his published utterances our visitor has not evidenced even that 1 per cent., though, in his own lanwe ma V well award him the full 100 per cent, of mouth.

On the few occasions when the lecturer got in sight of his subject he made amusing remarks about scientists thinking coral was a marine flower until someone (was it a fundamentalmt.) told them it was a product of a small sea animal.” and other items showing how really ignorant these scientists are the old vapid argument that science cannot explain evervthrng, supported by examples 'of natural facts that science explained long ago. Science does not profess to have yet explained everything; give it time, and it will. B A.E.C.

THE VOTE OF CENSURE

Sir,— advocate the medium S° lumns that very considerBenefit would accrue if the Al ivor o his U wav d< ?o inSt T d . nis v ' a 5 .to incubate discord at various meetings convened by the Auckland Transport Board, for which he has just been duly and rightly rebuked, on the motion of Mr. George Baildon—were to put his own “hoSsf” in order and leave transport business

in the hands of those who are apparently better versed therein than himself. I refer to his own borough, with its many requirements and sad-needed reforms. By way of exemplification, let him obliterate and prevent a continuance of the loathsome odours which emanate from the borough refuse dump situated in the rear of the shelter at the foot of Mount Eden, polluting the immediate neighbourhood with bacteria and stench. This is a disgrace to modern civilisation, apart from being contrary to the laws and regulations pertaining to hygienics, and thereby most injurious to health* In fact, its equal would not be found in a Kafir kraal, within which narrow precincts natives, dogs, sheep, goats and pigs reside. He might also, with every possible advantage, make himself cognisant of the deplorable state of some of the roads, other than those where some of the local potentates reside, where noxious weeds marly five feet high hold their sway, and adorn the footpaths; and likewise of the dire necessity of adequate street lighting in certain thoroughfares which, in their existing state, are a public danger (apart from being an incentive to profligacy), and. furthermore, insist on the local by-laws being respected and not violated, as at present, by equestrians being permitted to use footpaths which are set aside for ped€*striains only; and lastly, add to the number of traffic inspectors (there being only one, who retains a dual position, being the swimming bath attendant) to see that motor-cars aDd motor-cycles are not permitted to race along Mount Eden Road and Dominion Road, and other thoroughfares, at a rate of 35 and 40 miles an hour between 5 and 6 o’clock in the evening. When these improvement* and reforms are executed. it will be quite time enough for the Mayor of Mount Edett to devote his leisure attention else- 1 where. MOUNT EDEN RATEPAYER.