A REFORM WANTED THIS SESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 217, 13 March 1914, Page 6

A REFORM WANTED THIS SESSION.

To the Kilitor. Sir,-—One cannot help bring alarm-1 by the; number of assaults cn women, and especially young female c-li i 1.1. ■ -n. which are constantly being recorded in our newspapers. In Wellington recently 1 noticed that at the Supreme Con:'! there were four separate eases of ii: decent assault on children. The .i'g"* of these little victims (one was just out of babyhood) were 4'/. years, S years, 11 years and 13 years. Their' assailants were convicted and sent l.j gaol; but they will all be free men in about six years' time. One of the men had been convicted before for the same olfence, bis second victim being the little girl aged 4'/ 2 years; and this man will be. free again! In a splendid couiti try like ours, populated by a superior class of people, and noted fpr its advanced legislation, the increase in tne number of these assaults is a bad feature and a reflection on our laws for the protection of womanhood, and future motherhood. Without a doubi. our laws for their protection are obsolete when compared with the laws of other countries; even the English law is in advance of ours. In certain States of South America, Australia and South Africa (and it is also recorded iri the laws of Moses) the punishment for indecent assault on females is the death penalty. lie of Nazareth also .seems to have inferred that the penalty for offending children was death. If the severity of the laws in the above countries is causing the scum of their population to' drift to New Zealand it is plainly our duty to place our laws for these cases on a par with the laws of those countries by urging our legislators to'make the death penalty the punishment for these horrible, inhuman and unnatural assaults which were commented on in our Parliament a few years back. It is said that children asaulted are physically, and in some cases mentally, ruined for life, apart i from their innocence being blighted, and • perhaps left with a loathsomu disease. Then there are many cases of assault not reported, as the victims' parents, t hrotigh family pride, shrink from pubi licity and police court proceedings. In 6ne New Zealand city 1 was told that a mission sister who keeps a day school for little children had to get the police lo order away low fellows who came round with lollies when the school came out. Long sentences harden prisoner,!; ""KS'HS 11 dead letter, owing to "health reasons." Abolish the, death sentence for murder, if you wiyli, us it was abolished for robbery; hut those crimes are not on the same plane as brutal attacks by these human ghouls on defenceless children of the poorer classes, who are lured away with a few lollic*. Womanhood was unsafe in N'ew South Wales until capital punish-' mcnt was brought'in. During the Soulu African war capital punishment prevailed. .furies on these cases would perform a real benefit if they recommended capital punishment to be placed on the Statute ISook, because a bruliil crime deserves brutal punishment. When visiting America recently I enquired ii there were many of these assaults recorded, and I was informed that such cases were rare. Should the Government refuse to consent to the death penalty for such criminals they should at least he declared habitual criminal#. I am, etc., A XEW ZKALAXDIiR. Wellington, 0/3/14.