Pledge or Prison

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 7 March 1907, Page 9

Pledge or Prison

Judge Pollard, of St. Louis (U.S.A.) has a way of his own of 'dealing with casual offenders who fuddle their brains and tangle their feet with doses of liquid light- ' rung from vat or still. 'He gives the offenders ', says the ' Aye Maria ', "the option of signing the pledge. If they consent, he suspends punishment for a prescribed period, ait the end ,of which, the pledge having been kept, the punishment is entirely remitted. He has by this plan restored to their families and society as reformed citizens a large proportion— which we have seen stated to be 98 per cent.— of those who preferred riedge to Prison. The same plan of reformation rather than punishment has been tried in England, and found to work. well. While we doubt that the percentage of reformations is at all so .great as that stated, results much more moderate would still entitle the plan to very general adoption '. " In New Zealand the law has recently made provision for placing the hafti'tual drunkard- in institutions ' far from the madding crowd ', with a view to reforming ham— -if, happily, he has not been already 'Jornned ' beyond- the hope of reformation. But -so far as our police court practice goes, little hasTbeen done to hold back the casual ' drunk ' from drifting into the ranks of the swilling sots who are ever ready to welcome an. opportunity to • . - 'Get on a spree , N And go bobbing around '. ' Drunks ' are occasionally • let off ' in our policecourts on taking a pledge to abstain from the Wine when it is red. Unfortunately, the courts leave the

promise, , as the trout leaves its brood, to shift for itself. A benevolent surveillance would tend to 'armor' the resolution of the occasional or the practised toper, as steel rod or bar '.armors ' concrete. And the fear of imprisonment is a stimulus that is not J tci- / be despised in the case of man or boy or hobbledehoy " who has' violated the elementary virtue of temper^ ance. Judge Pollard's little ' plan is good, so far as it goes. We -should like to see the experiment fairly tried in New Zealand.