The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 18. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 392, 18 May 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, MAY 18. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

In all countries, no matter what general conditions of comfort prevail, there is a large proportion of human "flotsam and; jetsam." Every country has its degenerates, its criminals, its loafers, and its dependants. Every country has its paupers, and most countries have innumerable people who are habitual paupers and slhow no desire to be anything else. Formerly, in relation to all these classes of people, the successful person who 'had no temptation to be either a criminal or a loafer, and who was «» born that he could not be a decadent, either punished or preached to £he?e people. Nowadays it is generally understood that the proportion of more oir less useless people are more to be pitied than blamed, lor the reason that they have not the physical or mental energy to ,be anything else than failures. Eminent criminologists hold that crime is abnormality, and no criminal is able to explain tihe true reasons for his acts. All abnormal conditions represent Nature's methods of punishment for disobedience of her laws, and if there were no disobedience ther« would be no criminals, no decadents, and no lunatics. Someone mentioned the other day that the emancipation of woman and the more chivalrous treatment meted out to her had partially eliminated the brutal husband. The vast probability is, however, that more enlightened methods have been used in the diagnoses of abnormal conditions, and that .brutality is less at large than it used to be. New Zealanders are proud to occupy a lana where the social conditions are as favorame to the production of a normal race as those of any other country. But, as we have shown, however kind the conditions, there is always a proportion of human jetsam which presents a perennial problem to the State. It is therefore necessary in New, Zealand for the State to have gaojs, hospitals, and mental diseases asylums l , all these institutions preaching eloquently of human abnormality and crying out for patient human endeavor in the elimination of the causes. [ The man who is not a scoundrel, a thief, or a decadent hias no moral right to blame the man who is, but he has every incentive to work for a means, towards cure. When a startling criminal act is perpetrated, normal people aire not only shocked, but they are angry with the perpetrator. This is a perfectly natural feeling, hut it nearly always presupposes that the perpetrator was responsible for the act and should receive the direst punishment. Punishment used to be the only end the law had in view. Cure was out of the question. Bu| nowadays enlightened people have begun to understand that an abnormal condition vnat spurs a mian to perpetrate a wicked deed is merely a variation of the same condition that impels a person to contract diphtheria or typhoid fever. If the soil is right the germ iwdll grow. Perfect, that is, normal, health, therefore, must be universally attained before any race is sinless. Evil conditions and abnormalities are not cured by lectures or books, precepts or example, but by careful study and elimination of the causes. <one can not expect to cure a man's cough by blaming, Mm, and one, therefore, can not straighten a bent mind by giving its owner the cat-o'-nine-tails. AH sorts, of methods for the elimination of abnormalities have been suggested by the chief of which is that decadents, criminals, and the like shouid not lie permitted to produce their kind. But the fact that Nature will frequently produce an abnormality in eitfher of her kingdoms from normal parents is a reason why this must be ineffective. Then, again, Nature sometimes delights to produce perfection from imperfect materials, and to mere man the problem is almost terrifying in its complexity. Abnormality makes, it necessary for the State to supply the various asylums for the reception of flotsam and jetsam, and these conditions are responsible, too, for the splendid service given by devoted people to the cause of the "waste" products of this and other countries. The necessity for the protection of the least able people has created the Salvation Army, the Church societies having for their object the protection of women and children, the nursing societies, the Children's Homes, the Seddon Homes, and the innumerable other branches of human social endeavor all quite unnecessary if the physical health of the whole community were normal. The finest phase of human endeavor is that which spurs a person to devote a life's work to tbe solution of these great questions. Perhaps the best example of absolute unselfishness in this regard is to he found in the City of Wellington, where Mother Mary Joseph Aubert carefully tends a large number of abnormal children. In the great scheme of Nature these pitiable little creatures would have no place. Nature would eliminate them and pass on to other work. But these children with poor twisted little bodies and —in some cases—with warped minds are loved and eaired for just as I are the most beautiful children by the average normal mother. It is only by close association with Nature and heT methods of punishment that man can slowly find a way out of the tangle which his carelessness of her laws has created. Many men have been gifted with Biennis for curing physical abnormalities, and in the future there may arise geniuses whose mission it is to discover the particular causes that create such human mental diversity. We prate about "equality of opportunity," always forgetting that this can only be given by Nature. The old fabie of the two boys who set out in life from the same mark, the one eventually landing in

gaol and the other into the haven of a rich, peaceful old age merely shows a lack of knowledge. The boy who became (rich and respectable tad normal physical and mental (health, and the boy who went to gaol had 1 not—.that is all. And the problem for everybody is hornto prevent the latter boy from having the particular kind of mind that drove him to gaol. It is not any good praising the respectable person, Avho can't help beinw respectable, or blaming the derelict who can't help being a derelict. You must get down to the root causes of bis dereliction—and we sincerely believe the world is nearer seeing a solution than ever before.