Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1874 "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 420, 26 December 1874, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1874 "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Nut having wished, our readers in anticipation a Happy Christmas, we may now, according to Hibernian trope, wish it for them retrospectively. The Christmas, however, of the Southern Hemisphere, seems scarcely natural to those who have beenaccustomedtoassociate it with frost, snow and storm, and all the bristling array of savage winter out of doors, but at the same time with a cheerful" hearth and a sumptuous board, and the happy re-unions finder the .old family roof-tree within doors. We cannot have here, with v the same gusto, the standard fare of the season. - The frumerty — a relict of the old Romans— (frumentum ?) and the " lusty brawn" — a relict' of our forefathers — are altogether wanting on our Christmas Eve. The stuffed goose and rich mince pies are not seasonable. The plum pudding, the more it comes up in richness to Christmas standard, wants the sauce of the Keen appetite produced by cold, to give it relish. The kindly feelings of a social nature do not glow under a broiling sun, or in pic-nic parties, with the same warmth as they did around the blaze of the yule log, and the happy sports, of the young folks, and the interest which their hopes awakened in their elders of the wonderful products of their Christmas tree. The Christmas of the winter solstice was a day of giving and receiving gifts — emphatically a good day ; and many a heart warmed while possessed of the greater blessedness which gives. The very rigor of the season appealed with intense eloquence on behalf of the sons of want ; and generous hearts enjoyed with greater relish their own home comforts, .that they had supplemented the scanty board of. their poorer, neighbors. It is a satisfaction- for us to think that the social inequalities in this Britain of the South do not appeal with the same urgency* to the rich and well-to-do as they did in Britain. Yet if they did, they would not have the same force irom' surrounding circumstances ; and it sgema to us natural that the day devoted to the commemoration of the advent of the founder of our faith should awaken within our breasts gratitude, to God, and kindle up within us affection, kindness, and sympathy to our kind. For this reason, it waa possibly that the winter' solistice was fixed" upon as the Christmas time. With no date lo guide them as to the day of the year, ,this season in the. Northern Hemisphere was an appropriate one. We cannot help thinking that if Christmas was to be observed at all, the depth of winter is a season which gives greater scope to the impulses of a generous heart, as then the appeals are the more urgent. . The warm heart can then do more to supply the needed warmth in the colder homes of our poorer neighbors ; and greater- scope is given to the mercy that is twice, blessed, which " blesses him that gives and him that receives." We hayeno doubt that our youths will have also their pleasant memories of their Christmas seasons; and that in after life they will be able to look back • with deep interest todays of social enjoyment under the shade of some bush, and where the young flame had been, fanned, and the old story told for the first time in their respective histories ; but much as they may come ta enjoy the Christmas of the summer solstice, we scarcely see how it can ever equal the Christmas 'of- the winter solstice.

About two months ago, our contemporary the " Otagn Daily Times " refected in a somewhat contemptuous manner on Mr. Bathgate, who, - in passing sentence on some of the larrikin class, lectured them on the. evils of keeping late ( hours, and warned them against supposing that such things were not known or marked. Moreover, he added that they come to tell against them in many ways. We were rather surprised that » matter in itself so simple and right should have been made the object of animadversion. Such comments encourage these youths in iheir evil courses, which may in time call for measures far more repressive than the simple admonition of the Magistrate. In Victoria', they are finding this out. It is .little more than two years ago that such things there were laughed at as the escapades of those to whom an injustice is done whon they are treated as men, when they are only fit for the restraints of the nursery. At length, however, they begun to assume-k'moi&'serious' aspect, and ;these escapades became so frequent and formidable that the Press began to Bound the alarm, and to question if it were quite the thing to laugh at them, and for \ the Magistrates to treat them as only a kind of harmless practical joking., ..More-^ over, the evtf has kept growing until it has its combinations to thwart the police. The young blackguards are now known to club together to pay any fine that any of their class may be mulcted in for their wild doings ; and they have been known, to get up a riot to compel a publican to sell them liquor, contrary to the" Statute, hours. When the evil reaches this stage, admonitions are like water on the duck's wing;, but anything that would lessen their force, while they may be of use, is anything but wise. In Victoria, this evil in the body politic is now being treated as desperate. Fines no longer serve, the, purpose, for the larrikins have a public fund to defray them. Imprisonment is even not corrective ; and now a " Crimes and Offences Bill " is before the Victorian Parliament, which proposes to pay no reapect whatever to the external chicle of these precious

rascals. « The cat and the triangle are the only remedies that the Bill proposes. Of course there are philanthropists, so called, who are loud in their denunciations of this vandalism, as they regard it. " They talk , eloquently about these scoundrels being degraded in their own eyes for ever after, and sinking down to a state of chronic crime. We confess we cannot see the matter in this light. When it has come to this that crime has banded itself to defeat the present repressive measures of the law, and has succeeded, the only thing that it remains forthe Legislature to do is to try other measures beyond the ' reach of Buch a combination. We ajfe"aii much opposed to unnecessary rigour asrany ; but to allow things to go on as they- are at present is to permit a state of chronic crime to exist' among them, and matters could not well be worse under the lash. If correction in this direction is carried too far, public opinion will- soon call for redress, and it would be well to adjust the Bill in some of its provisions, so that it might only be applied to needed cases. But we would ask : Is' there nothing in the fear of a public flogging fitted to repress crime? X the partiessmU not be kept back from it by the disgrace of a public scourging, they are already so bad as to be hopeless, and all argument in their favour is so much wasted breath.