The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1886.

Auckland Star, Volume XVII, Issue 234, 5 October 1886, Page 2

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1886.

For ths came that lack* aaaiataaco, For tin wrong that necdt resisUncu, For tho future in tho dutanco, And tho good that we can do.

Not without reason ]are wo proud of our education system. Tmo it Kaß its cavillefs and objootors— systems of wide supplication generally have; but in this case they are mostly of a sectarian type, tinged with somewhat of that dog-in-the-manger spirit which has unfortunately so often characterised religious bodies. Yot setting theso unavoidable difficulties aside, and admitting that they raise questions which are open to discussion, it must ho confessed that for a young couutry to take upon its shoulders the Atlantean burden of universal education, to spond in the effort somo half million a year, displays a laudable, even if not always a satisfactory, ambition. But perhaps education may not be tho panacea which its supporters assert it to be. Possibly Miss Nightingale may havo had some justification for the assertion with which she is credited, that the three E's often lead to a fourth R, the R of Rascaldom. When one contemplates larrikinism one has misgivings. Whence comes this unhealthy South Sea Bubble, which is obtaining such an unenviable notoriety amongst us 1 Moralists and Reformers alike seem at fault. This is a pity, but one thing is certain, whatever its source, it must be treated with uncompromising vigour. Whether it comes in default of education, or in despite of education, or from parental sloppiness, or as a sign of the times, which seem to object to the manifestation of repressive authority, nohalf measure should be adopted in its treatment. Tho hoodlums who infest certain parts of our colonial cities, and make known their existence by wilful unprovoked assaults on tho weak and defenceless, who insult unprotected females and play brutal pranks on the persons of the aged, such should, we say most fearlessly, receive far more condign punishment than is usually meted out to them. On the contrary, there is a thin-skinned squeamishness displayed in dealing with these gentlomon altogether out of place, and testifying moro to weak-kneed feebleness than to practical common sense. What is the uso of subsidising with a fine of 10s a ruffian who has just distinguished himself by some brutal playfulnoss, coupling the fine with a sort of apologetic regrot on the part of the magistrate for its infliction, as though it hurt the fellow's feelings? We can fancy the characteristic gesture of contempt with which ho would solace those injured feelings on finding himself safe outside the awful magisterial presence, and, though mulcted in a small amount of coin, free once more to resume his tricks on any whom ill-luck may cast in his evil way. In cases such as theso sentimental philandering is a mistake. The feelings of such fellows reside iv their tails, and should be appealed to, by appropriate means,in the hands of a stalwart warder. " Hair of the dog is good for the bite," and a man —save the mark, he is not a man at all except for the sake of description —who has been guilty of brutality to the defenceless should have a taste of the triangles. We do not trifle with the germ of typhus or cholera. We do energetically what we can to destroy them j and larrikinism is a disease quite as serious for our social existence as typhus for our physical life. It spreads, too, like other evil things, and if we do not take care we may find before very long an evil force of ruffianism rampant amongst us that may threaten the very existence of our civilisation, and demand for its suppression powers' altogether beyond us. We may do what we like with the tiny stream at its source, but wait till the streamlet has grown into a mighty river, and then our best engineering skill is taxed to change its course. There is at least a possibility that our modern civilisation, like that of ancient Rome, may again be ravaged by Hun arid Vandal, with this important difference, that in their case the Huns and Vandals came from without, whereas our Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within our own country, and fostered by our own institutions, and will possess within their ranks the hoodlums and larrikins whom we are, as it were, developing by an unwise policy of temporising and expediency.