TRAINING-SHIP BOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 91, 17 April 1913, Page 6

TRAINING-SHIP BOYS.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Scanty. and uncertain reports have filtered through that all is not well or as it should be, and in dealing with the subject the question of discipline is not the point, • but rather the apparent official anxiety to shirk public knowledge. All right-thinking people have sufficient mental capacity to know that a training ship "is not a:picture-show, or-bowling-green," so flippantly commented upon by a writer whose remarks on. the,, subject display a lack of eommonsense. It is said that parents- have to enter into a bond when placing-their-.sons on , the Amokura, and, if so, they expect ordinary fair treatment for their sons, according to the nature of the occupation, -without the least sign of pampering. If,! as oUe parent reports,, seyeral.boys have to use the same water in a tub.for: washing their bodies.; Jis -correct, .-.one cannot reasonably call that pampering, but rather a sign of the higher cost of living and economising fresh water. The method may be healthy, according _xSI official ideas, but the average clean man would object. Sea training is one to. be encouraged, but let. the causes of this suspicion be removed, and shed Somelight on this" mysterious one-sided inquiry.— I am, etc, JOHN ANTHONY. . Ponsonby Road, Auckland.