Citizens Say

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1023, 14 July 1930, Page 8

Citizens Say

WRESTLING Sir.— X read with much interest vour criticisms on the reporting o£ wrestling matches. You certainly let the Wrestling Association down lightly with your comments. Could you inform me how many people—some wi'h plenty ot' money, too —get into the contests night after night free? I have frequently soon one of th" association members taking in numbers of persons at a time and I am certain they did not pay lor admission. The foolish methods of the association really deserve severe comment fairplay. THIS STEAM BUS Sir,— The Transport Board is giving trial to a steam bus. Someone rushed into the “Citizens Say? columns, expressinfear for the public safety. He cannot havo paid much attention to a painstaking article you published about the anatomy of this particular invention or he would not have been worried’ about boilers and explosions. Anybody with ordinary intelligence could get the hang of steam m . a few minutes. I have watched the inventor’s big car which has an engine similar to the one being Put into a bus chassis, being driven. Sitting in the driver’s seat one is faced by tlie steering wheel and, inside that a smaller one—the throttle. Tile footbrake is located to the right and the reverse to the left, then' the handbrake. r riiat’s tlie whole bag of appliances. Ho gears to change—-a twitch of the finger and no miles an horn- leaps to 90, all “on top’’ 'and nearly silent, flat or hills. A delightful experience, tlie unleashing of no horse-power with a movement of thumb and forefinger. Anyone of ordinary intelligence can in very truth learn the business quickly. Of course trilling mistakes can occur, such as happened when inexperience flicked the throttle the wrong way, producing 40 miles an hour behind a Chinaman’s cart when the indicator was expected to read four! One forgets about water! This err would go to Wellington and back on the one drink. It is ft regular camel, the steam being- condensed and used again. Ilio first tiling to do in mana —- mg a steam car is to forget that it Ims an engine. Potential passengers in the steam bus must rid themselves of the idea that there is a steam boiler aboard says the inventor, q'he severity of explosions depends entirely upon the amount of steam released by a failure. Tho design of tlie generator is revolutionary in that there is no reserve of steam, all being used practicallv as fast as made. “I’ll show you the effect of a burst in the coils of tills generator,” said the Inventor. The only effect was the expulsion of a small

(To the Editor.)

quantity <>f steam with a sigh not unlike that heard at a t'itv Council meeting when midnight strikes. Again to answer your correspondent. the generator is not a boiler within the meaning of the Act.. It' it were, the steam car industry would be doomed from the start. Can anyone imagine a man presenting his 'wife with a steam ear, then telling her she had better start “swotting” for her ticket. They're not all Amy Johnsons’ STEAM SUPPORTEU. HANGING Sir.— "A Woman” and “Lex.” advocating execution, both ignore the most essential point—that is that there is a tremendous difference between being found guilty of murder, in a legal sense and yet being proved guilty. I have been told by scores of persons that a man who was hanged at Mount Eden gaol was really innocent. And as fot execution, it only makes matters worse. Not only is it murder within .he law. but. it makes other persons guiltv. Christian law declares: "Thou shalt do no murder.” Yet the law employs servants to break its own ordinance! Am: in conclusion I should like to ask "A W oman” and “Lex” if they would like to have a hangman staying in their own house? And why it is that in ninety-nine eases out of a hundred a woman murderer is not executed? Lecause the law is too ashamed! R. M. THOMSON. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Sir,— As the originator of the present correspondence on the above subject, may I reply briefly to one or two of the surprising statements that have been made in defence of the existing methods? It was, of course, to bo expected that one would be branded as a “snivelling sympathiser” guilty of “mushy sentiment,” but I should like to ask your readers which they think to be the more sentimental view—that which demands revenge by a life for a life, or that which treats crime as a problem to be solved by scientific methods. If it is true that other countries have found other methods more effective for murder than capital punishment, does not cold common sense suggest that we should try these other methods too? I I or the benefit of one correspondent \\ho quotes Chicago and American lawlessness generally, as warnings against abolition, it should be pointed out (1> that the death penalty has never been abolished in Chicago; and L> that of the eight states of the LJ.S.A. having the lowest murder rates five are abolitionist, while of the eight having the highest murder rates all retain the death penalty. Another . correspondent asks me to state the alternative to capital punisli-

ment. There is nothing about this. It is to treat the as wo do others who show antitendencies: i.**.. shut him up what we can to make him fit to re to society. Is the murderer so worse titan other criminals tn must by hanging him admi failure to deal with him? “None of those released, chief of the Swedish .1*; jnor* traUon, speaking of conview igT derers set free after long ever been re-convicted of f“ U *altft® f * manslaughter. They always, after release, lived as zens, earning their living b>’i<>*£ they have learn*d during tn # period in prison.” But P*j** should do better to stick to tn® oj;** —after all, no cue attempt ed * , good citizen of Cain. ' * oa j4l>* good enough in those days 1 presumptuous to