"A SET OF CRIMINALS."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 187, 7 August 1913, Page 8

"A SET OF CRIMINALS."

— ■ ' — TRENCHANT ATTACK' ON SUFFRAGETTES. Mr \lgernon Giasing has a trenchant Utter in the "Times" in reply to one by Mr Bernard Shaw on the suffragettes and tlie hunger-strike. Chivalry and politeness (he writes) are admirable qualities, no doubt, but if they arc to regulate our dealings with all convicted criminal* they will soon be found to afford but a very aorry substitute for the law' of the land in protecting our lives and property from outrage. In the name of common sense, it may .be asked, why should the -Prime Minister or any smaller person bo '■ subjected to all thit illogical insult on behalf of a set of criminals who are leant of all deserving of any reasonable sympathy, inasmuch as they have brought every one of their woes upon themselves deliberately, with the sole and professed purpose of doing promiscuous injury and of defeating the ends of justice? SPOILING OUR WOMEN. Delusions must presumably be pointed out, at all events, protty cogently to criminally minded persons, man or woman, if they cannot bo driven out of them, It is not cosy to enter into that Uttdr pervcrelon of judgment which can apply to these disorders lofty words like "scaling of testimony with blood," and so on. it is that perversion which Is doing a great part of the mischief by inspiring unbalanced minds with the ccr.-ie of fccrotom and martyrdom. This, If once acquired, no matter how unreasonably obtained, has, as we know, uo limit. Too many of our glorious young girl*, who nocra tho very light of life until you begin to dlseiiss with them, are getting infected by the really tragical hick of tho uense of all proportion In their alms. It would ho ludicrous win It not so essentially tragical. Tho demoralising effect of It is Incalculable. Means hecomo absolutely nothing, Every wibtorfugo of despicable villainy la brooded over and refined to tho point of becoming a aeal to their heroic testimony. Crlnje has become once for all a light and reasonable thing. The mental attitude to an ordered universe has be;omo hopelessly deranged. . THE END AND THE MEANS. And thte in women, mind, not in the : poor animal man. Hero is the centre of : the tragedy. The quarrel of us of the older school with these things is just : that they arc imperilling the very fibre : of womanhood. Certainly no candid man can behold many aspects of woman's life ] without emotion or intolerable indigna- : tion, but whether this is to be removed 1 by allowing certain criminal -women to think that they are martyrs in the cause of raising and ennobling their sex by petulantly committing suicide in one ' way or another, or by becoming expert malefactors, cannot be to mest reasonable people even a question.