A PITIABLE STORY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8244, 24 September 1906, Page 7

A PITIABLE STORY.

While the Habitual Criminal and Offenders Bill waß undergoing its second reading in the Legislative Council, on Friday, the Hon. J. Rigg took the point th&t poverty and environment were largely responsible for the crime of the colony. Apropos of the last-men-tioned contention, he remarked that it was the duty of the State to find emoloyment for its people. It was pitiable, he said, to sea crowds of men waiting outside a newspaper office to see what employment was offering and then running off in tens and twenties to apply for a single job. He knew of one; case where a billet in a timber-yard had drawn forty applicants within an hour. He had another case in bis mind. A tailoring man in the city had lost his employment through some Arbitration Court case. He was unable to get another plaoe, and from time to time contrived to keep house and flesh together by making odd suits for a few friends who sympathised with him and his family. Mr Rigg was not aware of his distress until the man was put in a lunatio asylum. "Nothing more or less than sheer, downright, hard lnok was responsible for that man's insanity," Mr Rigg said. "He is in the lunatio asylum to-day, and he has a delusion. And what do honourable members think that delusion is? Tint he has a permanent billet at £3 10s per week! Gould there possibly be anything more pitiable than this?" >