The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1883.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4630, 6 November 1883, Page 2

The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1883.

Some days ago a telegram from Auckland recorded the fact that a Waterloo veteran, agod 92, had died in tho Mount Eden Gaol, to which place of confinement ho had been committed on a charge of vagrancy. A portion of the Southern Press has commented severely but deservedly on the fact, and we cannot but offer a remonstrance to such occurrences. In the first place, a system which will permit a man of the age of 92 being consigned to a gaol on account of poverty is a most pernicious one, and one which should not obtain countenance in any civilised community; a man of that age is physically incapable of earning a livelihood, and, if destitute, should bo provided with the necessaries of life in an institution especially kept up for the reception of such people; in the second place, it was a gross wrong to the man to incarcerate him within the walls of a receptacle for criminals, because he lacked a sufficiency of this world's goods to sustain life within him. Having looked upon the matter from the humane point of view, it would appear that " Man's inhumanity to man" was not the crowning and mostly to be deprecated error committed, bufc ingratitude (one of man's most heinous moral sins) was added. In our district was a man who had done service to the State—not our own email colonial State certainly, but the j parent one—who had served in one of the moßt glorious victories recorded in its favor, livinghis last days and dying within wallsset apart to confine felons ; a man unconvicted of crime, beyond that of the worldly [crime £of poverty, meeting his

death in an atmosphere of guilt. How horrible the reflection, in a just and charitable mind. Surely some remedial measures could, and should, be taken to prevent a repetition of so lamentable an occurrence. 'Tis in the power of man to make provision—small are the require ments—for such, cases as this, arid no time should be lost in doing so. If the governmental aid in providing relief for such cases is insufficient, the people should not allow so foul a stain to remain on their name as must inevitably do so if deaths similar to this one we refer to are again chronicled. Reports as to the fulness of the Old Men's Refuge and other institu* tions in Auckland, are not sufficient excuses for sending indigent persons to gaol, and for the credit of the people themselves, we would suggest that if they cannot obtain Government assistance wherewith to provide for cases such as we refer to, which may occur in their midst, they had better take the matter in hand themselves, and so prevent scandals arising, which spread to their detriment, and speak little for their charitableness.