Wararapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1892. OUR OWN BOYS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4197, 20 August 1892, Page 2

Wararapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1892. OUR OWN BOYS.

Being the extehded title of the Wairarapa Daily, with which it is IDENTICAL ~

With the picture which we attempt : to-day, our portrait gallery will be i complete, Two Young Colonists and two Young Colonials combine to form a quartette whioh should be fairly representative of the young blood of New Zealand, unless we have wholly failed in our observation of character, Tho colonist who starts with cash, and the colonist who doesn't; these, with tbtir colonial-bora sons, exhaust the types which present themselves when we think of Our Hoys. Let ub see now what can be said of the wageearner's son. This country has often been described as the Paradise of the working man; and it will be lawful to consider what the offspring of the New Zealand Adam are doing in the Garden which is tlioir natural heritage. Do they fulfil any other function involved in their possession of the land, beyond obeying the primal law that they shall increase andmultiply ? How should one describe the lads who belong to that class which has long been known in England as the 11 lower middle?" Of the "larrikin," what shall be said ? Rudyard Kipling tells us somer where that the drawback of collecting dirt in one corner is that it gives a false notion of the filth of the room; but that people who understand and have knowledge of their own will be able to strike fair ayerages. Quito so; and we take this opportunity of assur? ing simple folk that not all Young Colonials are lanikins—that the following sketch only aims at describing a particular class whose existence in our midst is at all events admitted. The larrikin proper lives for en« joyment; but ho can do hard work. The latter method of employing his time he never adopts except under

compulsion ; nor does be euro to excel m any craft more than will qualify him to earn the money attached to the performance of a given job, He will do his work abominably, if you will let him; but he will do it well enough, be it what it may, when he thinks you are smart enough to take notice and to show insistance. It is, however, by his pleasures that the larrikin is best diagnosed. These take a wide range. They begin in boyhood with the delight of heckling Chinamen at all hours, or hustling elderly , Europeans at night;

or again, if he has an unoc cupied half-hour, he will stono ft lam dog to death. When the 'teens ar drawing to then* end, his pleasure grow more solid, and fnpluae seriou assaults, the interruption flf'puplii meetings, and the frequentatjon c " the 'ousee," TJie larrikin rarel gets very drunk, but he delights ti look after less wary people who dr. His view of the relation between hiin self and the other sex is that you cai always take advantago of a woman because she is weak, His notion of i race meeting i» that it is an ocoasloi for running "Btiff-W'j of a gam of cards, that it is worth while onl; when one of the players is a "mug. He has a home—that is to say.hi parents, brothers, and sisters live in: house iogetb.erj but this accidents CirpufflstHnpe d,oes not ,beget jn bin any respect for the ajtfip ,yf hi being, or any affection fpr his ]kit] and kin. He will not lot any on swindle them, it is true, if it is in hi power to prevent it—but that i because his family connections ar his own lawful prey. As lo hit language, every phrase would be

worth Five Shillings in a Police Court; while in impudence of manner and repulsiveness of appearance he can give points and a beating to any Whitecbapel tap-room lounger. His progress through the streets of a town' maybe tracked by the spittle on the pavement. It wqujd probably be difficult to shame him; but the experiraentcan hardly bo said to have been made. He has possibly the usual allowance of animal courage; but the point must remain undetermined at present, stnco ho is gregarious in his habits, and every public appearance of the larrikin' is made under cover of numbers.' It is only when there is actual "boodle" to be secured, that he plays a lone hand and refuses a partner. Ho is a standing menace to the pnblicpeace; and, while he is the problem of thinkers and the despair of social legislators, his career engages the anxious attention of the Executive in every considerable centre of population. In truth, larrikinism is something graver than the baiting of Chinamen; more important than street yells or, blasphemies; more dangerous evon than the stones occasionally thrown by its representatives when they "run a-muck." These little things are merely symptoms; the cause of them lies deep in the body politic the euro deeper still, Like his cousingerman, the English "rough," the, colonial larrikin is the produot of our own indifference. Mr Matthew Arnold, a poet as little "preachy" as can well be conceived, a thoroughly fin-de-skde moralist, emancipated from all creeds, says to us:—

" We do not what we ought, What wc ought not, we do ; And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through j But our own acts for good or ill aro mightier powers I" That is so. In a final article we hope to show that it is as true of a State as of eaoh individual citizen therein.