GENERAL NEWS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 157, 20 November 1912, Page 6

GENERAL NEWS.

It is expected that the Sedgwick boys in New' Zealand will this year remit £l2O as Christmas presents to parents and friends in England. The money will be sent through the Labor Department. The boys are each remitting between £2 and £3 this year, as against an average of £1 last year. Of the original party of 50 boys, there are now about 43 remaining as wards of the Labor Department. Of the remainder some have reached 21 years, and so passed from the Department's control, whilst a few have absconded.

The New Zealand Times recently stated: "The Railway Department is probably losing about £SOO to £BOO a day on its extra Main Trunk express to and from Auckland. The first train left Auckland with 60 passengers, and the second arrived in Wellington with 35. Yesterday morning 30 alighted at Wellington. From this end the average has been 35. .It requires no imported j'oung man between 30 and 35 years of age with affable demeanor: to tell Mr. Hemes that you can't pay even 3% per cent, on that kind of basis. The second express in the South Island is reported to be losing the county £30,000 to £35,000 a year, or about £COO a week. Of course, as compared' with the loss of £IOO a week in carrying empty carriages up and down from Wellington to Te Aro, this is not a large item; but it doesn't require a man from England or Canada to show that while the politicians hold the whip hand our railways have not the ghost of a chance of doing themselves justice." So expert are some of the pickpockets now in New Zealand at their game that it is very hard to catch them in the act, and very often the victim does not discover his loss till some time after, and by the time the police have been informed it is too late to follow any clues. One of these gentry gave an exhibition of his expertness to the police in his cell at Christchurch by abstracting a halfpenny from a police officer without the officer being aware that he had been touched, though he knew the man was about to attempt the performance. From the police; point of view, the law of Australia appertaining to these men could well be adopted in New Zealand. Over in the island continent if a man is seen dodging in and out of a crowd more than once he can be arrested as a suspect and imprisoned, perhaps for six or. twelve months. Tf there were such a law in New Zealand the police would not be so powerless as they appear to be at present in dealing with the visiting pickpocketing fraternity.