Colonial Youth.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3294, 12 July 1879, Page 2

Colonial Youth.

We clip the following from the Sydney Morning Herald. Although it is meant to refer especially to Australian youth, much of the article is applicable to our New Zealand young ideas.

Even leaving out of the reckoning those absolute savages we denominate larrikins, the boys of this colony know: nothing of good behaviour. It is only necessary to stand outside a State school at the hour of dismissal to be satisfied of the uncontrolled violence which is part of the very being of the young persons who are theoretically supposed "to be diligently learning those things which soften much the manners. It is not merely the effervescent exuberance of youth which shows itself, but there is evidently a spirit of malicious mischief and destructiveness, 1 alarming in itself, and quite the opposite of reassuring as to the future. The; young men and boys who are employed' in shops and offices are uniformly insolent.! If a complaint be made to their employers; they are probably sent away, but those who take their places are no better than ■ those who have preceded them. If all of j this ungentleness of manner were merely I unpleasant, it would be bad enough, but; it is so seriously suggestive of what is to come. It foreshadows lawlessness and; contempt of authority and general social '■ disorganisation. Of larrikinism proper,; there is nothing but what is bad to report. The magistrates, indeed, are inflicting much heavier sentences, but as every. intelligent person has long ago declared, imprisonment has no terrors for this class, and the Legislature, having a fellowfeeling for them refuses to make the lash the punishment. Only the other day a company of these rough youths surrounded a policeman in G'arlton, and nearly killed him with his own baton. So that it would seem that to beat a policeman has come to be regarded as something heroic. It is an extension of the principle of Kellyism, which, there can be no question, is now quite a popular, mstilution, and the longer the Kelly gang remain uncaught, the more exalted will be their place in the scale of greatness. An unconsciousness of the baseness of, crime appears to be an alarming characteristic of the time. Thus, a week ago, an educated young man moving in good society, well bred, conspicuous as an athlete, was detected stealing out of the pockets ot the coats and waistcoats in the dressing-room of the Melbourne Cricket Club, of which he was a member. And he did it that he might give liberally to an infamous woman. His life is blighted by ther discovery, up to the moment ot wnich r ne had been peculiarly gay and light-hearted of manner, as if he suffered no compunc tious visitings of remorse for his paltry pilfering. .^« •