CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 50, 8 June 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

BLACK SHEEP. There are black siieep in every flock, and New Zealand and Australia are wide, giving the black sheep great scope to hide himself from the law and Ins liabilities. In every country there are many wastrels who undertake responsibilities, but who are able, subsequently, on account of the unsatisfactory condition of the law, to avoid them. Tht*| husband who abandons his wife and children is perhaps the worst kind of wastrel we have, and the puiMic is brought into close contact with his particular kind of crime almost daily, xie real point for the public in the matter of defaulting husbands is that it is bound to pay for his sin. In innumerable cases the abandoned wife, unless discovered by some charitable organisation or the police, elects to herself become the breadwinner for her children, and in many cases the onus is removed from the husband. He, as a visual thing, carefully recedes from the haunts of man, returning only to make levy on the earnings of his wife. It has not yet been discovered whether the abandonedj wife is better off with or without hei wastrel husband. This much, however, is certain: The law must get its hand on the man, and, if he is unwilling to work, he must be watched by a man with a gun, and made to respond to the demand of whatever law exists. In theory, New Zealand is perpetually chasing the man who has left his wife and family, but up to the present moment he lias been allowed to catch tue next boat to Sydney without meeting any detective. Nothing has really been done yet to prevent the man from catching the Sydney boat, except that the Destitute Persons Bill, which has special reference to the absconding husband, was introduced to Parliament. The jjiJ], which will be reintroduced shortly, may have the effect of insisting that the absconding husband shall be brought up with a round turn. The fact remains that it will be necessary, when the husband is suddenly stopped in his career of independence, that die shall be forced to undertake work to keep his family in shelter and food. The police force carefully watch the Chinese fan-tan player, and decide that he must not indulge in the wicked game which is five thousand years old. But the question of the defaulting husband is of mucili greater consequence than fan-tan, bridge, ping-pong or any other game, and the sooner the absconding husband is chained to a job by which he can earn money only usable by his deserted wife and children, the sooner may the New Zealand legislature ask for the admiration of the people. In the meantime the absconding husband is still absconding, and the people pay.

•• MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN." If there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, it must operate in New Zealand, because New Zealand necessarily copies the precedent of Britain. We read that a woman in England dared to reach through a fence, and there picked up one shilling's worti l ! ot beech twigs for firewood. She was the mother of a large family, and the breadwinner earned ten shillings a week. Yet a Bench of Magistrates, because the woman was poor, and the owner of the twigs was an earl, sent her to 'gaol for three months without the option of a fine (which she could not have paid under any circumstances). In New Zealand it is different—perhaps. A co-mmiK muscular lunatic who was charged with assault was sent to gaol for seven years. We pride ourselves on our humanity, and a gradual drawing away from the conservative customs of the Old land. The other day there was quoted an English case in which a boy of twelve years old, who had stolen a lump of coal, was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and a flogging. Britain roused itself, and prevented the sentence, but was too late to prevent the flogging. In New Zealand there is tbe record of housebreaking a'gainst two children, who were sentenced to three years* imprisonment and a birching for "breaking" into an empty house, and firing what they thought was a mere abandoned whare. The point is that the Justices of the Peace who passed this sentence on the children were of exactly of the same class as the children—ignorant, unlettered, and altogether umvortny to hold the position a weak Sta.te had given them. The venom of file rich against the poor is a paltry circumstance to the venom of the poor against their kind. The justice of any kpd of Bench is not always based on law. but upon the personal predictions and notions of its constituents. A judge who is ill is ever severe. A judge who is a sinner of the same type as the man he sentences will almost invariably inflict a heavy sentence. In fact "man's inhuI inanity to man, makes countless millions mourn." THE AVfATORS. Tn the race for the conquest of the "louds the British apparently lag behind. Detractors of Britons naturally see in this the native backwardness and duliipss of the race. The real fact is that Britain is peculiarly slow to attempt innovations, leaving failures to be demonstrated by others. England has not figured largely in the balloon and aeroplane smashes that are at present a feature on German and French soil. We hear little from America in regard to aviation, but we confidently expect to know fairly soon that the* most prac-' tieal and permanent method of flying has been achieved bv an Anglo-Saxon. The modest feat of the Hon. Mr. Rolls, coming so soon after the sensational flights of Bleriot, Paulhan, Latham, Zeppelin, de Lesseps, and the others, demonstrates that the British people are profiting by the failures and the successes of others. It is noticed that although the aviators who fought for the conquest of the air were mostly foreigners, the promoters of the flights were British.] and that the most careful records of these wonderful flights are in possession of the finest engineers in Britain. It is good for us to know that the greatest of all ensineers come from the Northfind the South—of the Tweed, and that England made an airship two hundred years ago, abandoning the idea of flying | afterwards in order that the science of

flight might be more systematical!) studied. There was no advertising when Colonel Capper, president of the military school of ballooning, took the air in the Army dirigible '.Beta.'' Hying from Farnborough to London and back, returning at twenty-live miles an hour. This is, of course, slower than the speeds put rip toy airships traversing the Channel, but the point to be observed is that this British ship carried three people, and was driven by a 23-horse-power engine. The science of aviation must have an immense bearing on the future ot the Empire, and every well-wisher of the Empire will hope for the success ot British aviation. The possibilities of the science are inexhaustible, and the use oi ■the most successful airships may make or mar nations. To the intrepid men who are demonstrating the wonders o! the revived science the world owes much, and in the race for domination we sincerely hope that Britain may be able to keep up the "two-Power standard."