COLONIAL YOUTHS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 204, 8 July 1879, Page 2

COLONIAL YOUTHS.

The following observations, by a correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, were intended to apply especially to the youth of Victoria, It must, however, be admitted that a considerable portion of them is equally applicable .much nearer home

Even leaving out of the reckoning tlioso absolute savages we denominate larrikins, the boys of thiß 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 ihows itself, but there is evidently a spirit of malicious mischief and destructiveness, 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 this ungentleness of.manner were merely 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 fellow-feeling for them, refuses to make the lash the punishment. Only the other day a company of these young roughs surrounded a policeman in Carlton, 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 institution, and the longer the Kelly gang remain uncaug'nt the more exalted will be their place in the scale of greatness. An unconsciousness of the baseness of crime appears to bo the alarming characteristic of the time. Thus, a week ago, an educated young man, moving in good society, well bred, and conspicuous as an athlete, was detected stealing out of the pockets of the coats and waistcoats in the dress-ing-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 the discovery, up to the moment of which he had been peculiarly gay and lighthearted of manner, as if he had suffered no compunctious visitings of remorse for his paltry pilfering.