The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1902. CRIME AND PUBLIC OPINION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 110, 10 May 1902, Page 4

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

SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1902. CRIME AND PUBLIC OPINION.

For the cause that lacks assistance

For -tie wrong that needs resistance

For the future in the distance

A.nd the good that we can do.

The session of the Supreme Court, during the past week has been marked by two episodes which we regard as of unusual public interest. In two •uses of brutal and violent crime, ii. jury, while returning a verdict

.if guilty, did their best to lighten .he sentence by a strong recommendation to mercy, under circumstances that seem to us so instructive that

we propose to comment upon them at some length.

The case of Duffy, who on Friday received ten years' hard labour for a peculiarly "brutal assault upon a constable, illustrates only too clearly the view that a large portion of the community entertains about the necessity for preserving law and order. The facts of the man's arrest, as described in Court, are a shame and a disgrace to our city. In the main street of Auckland, a police-

man engaged in arresting a drunken ruffian, is mobbed and assaulted by a crowd said to number nearly 100 men. It is absurd to assume that these scores of men were all of the dangerous or criminal class —tbey probably included a large number of average honesty and respectabilityyet so low is the standard of public feeling amongst us that only one man, and that man a stranger, and, by the way, a native of a country not notorious for its prejudices in favour'of law and order—only one man ventured to risk the ill-will of the bystanders or the violence of the prisoner by interfering on the side of the police. We prefer not to believe that the average .young man to be found about Auckland in the

evening is always m cur and a coward, but the account of Duffy's arrest does not encourage optimism on the, subject. Unfortunately, the results of this disgraceful misconduct were serious. The constable w-as deprived by the mob of all means of securing the prisoner or defending himself, and was thus left exposed to an unexpected and ferocious assault, from the. consequences of which he may

never recover. The responsibility for this, of course, rests with the mob of cowardly hoodlums who incited Duffy to resist, though, as they were not shamed into decency by Mr" Lowry's courage, we can hardly expect them to take their conduct seriously to heart now.

Whatever this gang of roughs and curs might feel, w^e might have expected that a body of representative citizens, entrusted with the commission of the great public duty of administering the law, would take a serious view of the responsibilities

entailed upon every decent man to maintain the public peace. This man Duffy is described by the police as a dangerous character of the" worst type. He has served previous sentences for assaults, and his last public exploit was an attack upon a constable, from the effects of which his victim, it was stated in evidence, never fully recovered. Yet. fhe jury, consisting of decent, lawabiding; citizens, recommended the

prisoner to mercy, on the ground that there was a question whether the constable in arresting him had not exceeded bis duty. It is deplorable that such a quibble should have been utilised in such a way, and it seems to have made no difference to the opinion of Judge Cdtiolly,

The other incident to which we have referred is of a similar nature. A man was convicted of a brutal assault upon a feeble and he_r.ie.ss woman. The Judge described tbe case as one of the worst he had evermet; there was no possible doubt about the facts.or the revolting nature of the offence, yet once again we find the jury recommending the prisoner to mercy. We consider that the sentence imposed by Judge Conolly deserves the commendation of every decent-minded and rightthinking man and woman in the colony. When are we to hear the last of this nauseous twaddle about the lash? What conceivable argument can be urged against Hogging in sijch cases that does not apply to every other form of punishment, with this reason in addition, that while all other penalties have proved unavailing the efficacy of the lash has been constantly tested and proved in cases of violent crime. In London and Liverpool, in Sydney and Melbourne, and in, alL,other great centres of population where this punishment, has been consistently and rigorously applied it has had the desired effect. Garrotting was stamped out by this penalty hi England thirty years ago. and its enforcement in the colonies has always been foil owed by a diminution in the amount of violent crime. We must confess ourselves unable to understand the mental attitude of those estimable people who cry out against, flogging as a brutal and degrading punishment.. Are we to linger with maudlin tears over the temporary sufferings of such brutes as this man Andrew, and shut our eyes and ears to the nameless torture and unutterable shame that such ereatures'inflict upon helpless'yvomen and children? case for tbe lash does not Tie ih the *vay of vengeance. The argument /or the infliction of this 'penalty is the sole ground on which any • legal punishment can be justified—the common interests of soefffety at large-.. The heaviest responsibility, the ihost sacred duty entailed upon men, is the necessity for guarding women and children from danger. While we have our wives and sisters and daughters to protect, w% cannot afford to analyse too subtly the feelings of the particular kind of brute by whom they are threatened'!- And 'apart from the general ground of public and social sa-fety, it must Hot be forgotten that no crime that one man can commit against another man can approach this particular offence in moral and physical atrocity, or in the awful nature of its consequences. Let the members of the jury who recommended this man to mercy consider what their feelings might be if those nearest and dearest to them should ever be the victims of such a crime.