Souveniring or Theft

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24740, 4 December 1945, Page 4

Souveniring or Theft

Many will have smiled on reading a paragraph in the "General " News " column, on Monday about the method adopted on board the visiting aircraft-carrier Indefatigable to discourage souvenir-hunt-ers. Unfortunately too few will have stopped to consider it odd that such a warning should be necessary in a reasonable community. An incredible number of persons who would no more think of shoplifting, for example, than they would of house-breaking, see no great harm in " souveniring" whatever may happen to be or they can make loose, on a ship of war, or any other ship for that matter* Yet there is no essential difference between the two actions. Shoplifting is stealing; "souveniring" is stealing, And a great deal more damage may be done by the latter than the former. The abuse of public property by otherwise reasonable and honest persons seems to be an increasing evil, of which New Zealanders have no monopoly. We used to be able to flatter ourselves that common honesty was one of our virtues as a community; but to-day there is indisputable evidence on every hand that our standards in this respect are sadly slipping. Here in Christchurch it is noticeable in frequent reports of such actions as the stripping of public and private gardens, the theft of fixtures from public buildings, the theft of glasses, cutlery, and silver from hotels. It is time that a firmer stand was taken. Those who need the lesson should be taught the hard way that stealing public and semi-public property is as bad as stealing private property, and deserves the same punishment.- Notices of the kind mentioned in Monday's paragraph should be no more necessary on 1 public property than notices on [private property, warning thieves that they are unwelcome.