JUVENILE SMOKERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8865, 28 October 1907, Page 4

JUVENILE SMOKERS.

With two branches of the Legislature to deal with the Bijls submitted to Parliament one might imagine that fairly efficient laws would result; but it is a fact that few laws are passed thut have not to be amended within a year or two of their passage, owing to the discovery of constructive defects. It has twice occurred during recent years that measures passed during the session have had to be amended by fresh legislation the same session. The latest example of the break-dowo of a law from the cause mentioned has to do with the Juvenile Smoking Suppression Act. Apart from the question of faulty construction, the Act was practically

inoperative from the outset, inasmuch as the penal provisions, so far as juvenile smokers are concerned, were struck out by the Legislative Council, and as a result juvenility smiled and smoked on, risking the terrible dan-1 ger of being hauled before a Magistrate to be let off with a caution, because nothing worse could happen to them. But even this modest check has been rendered nugatory by limiting its operation to juveniles who smoke in a public place. Last week a boy under. 15 years of age was charged at the Invercargill Magistrate's Court with smoking a cigarette on the stair leading to the dresscircle of the theatre. It was then discovered that this was not a "public place" within the meaning of the Police Offences Act, and the Magistrate was obliged to dismiss the case without even admonishing the urchin. He pointed ou.t that if the Act was to be made effective it should be made to apply to juveniles found smoking no matter where. There are scores of places which are not "public places" in a legal sense in every city and town, so that the Act is utterly useless for suppressing a great and growing evil.