MISPLACED SEVERITY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 216, 5 June 1908, Page 6

MISPLACED SEVERITY.

A feature of tho decisions given by the Supreme Court Judges in, criminal trials during tho past couple of week's lias been a general' tendency towards a -wholesome ancli well-chosen severity. At Invercargill on Tuesday, however, Mr. Denniston carried severity' to a point which'wo are certain will not meet with public approval. A young man, 27 years old,' who has a delicate, wife and'two young children, admitted that he had obtained employment on tho railways by forging or falsifying a school certificate so as to represent that he had passed the Fifth Standard at school, when in truth he had only passed the Fourth Standard. An application was made that his case should be treated as one. for probation, but the Judge refused the application. " These frauds on the public," he said, according to the telegraphed report, " wore becoming too common, and something must be done to put a check on them."' He sentenced accused to three months''imprisonment, "stating that he would have passed a longer sentcnco, only for the age and character \of accused." Tho sentence, as tho Duncdin Star says, is " an outrage." One can hardly conceive a caso better, suited for the operation of tho wise and merciful Probation Act, and one can only wonder what His Honour imagines that that Act exists for if it is not. to meet such cases as this. Public policy requires very' often that an individual offender shall be treated with much greater severity than would be'necessary if there were no other end to bo served than the punishment of' his offence as an isolated transgression. " Examples " must sometimes be made, and we fully realise that it may cause a Judge much private pain Mien sentence must be determined by the necessity for preserving social order against noxious precedents of Icniency. What bad precedent would have been set, what public interest would have suffered, if the young man Cleupson had been considered , sufficiently punished by dismissal from his employment? The extraordinary thing about this decision is that it was not delivered without reference to tho age and character, if not to the circumstances, of the prisoner. The Judge did take the man's age and character into account. Can it be said that the actual offence was so grave, or so likely to bo copicd by others, as to deserve a punishment that the circumstances make so shockingly severe? The Attorney-General has lately been telling the public that there is such a thing as a punishment that docs not disgrace. That doctrine, to which all reasonable men must subscribe, involves the antecedent doctrine that there are crimcs in the eye of the law that arc not crimcs in the eye of public opinion. That involves the further admission that there are degrees of heinousncss in every transgression, ranging from zero to infinity. Most people will regard this young man's offence as little greater than the offence of a man who steals bread for a starving wife and family. His forgery was of a trifling character: his motive was an anxiety to obtain'work. His punishment will shock everyone who reads of it. Nor is the Judgo's h.ction the only rcgvottablo ciroumstarico in the affair. Tho public will desiro to know why tho liail-

way Department did not content itself with reprimanding the man, or at the most dismissing him. The Department has its rules, and its red-tape, and the red-tape is had and foolish enough in its passive aspect. The public puts up with that as an established and timehonoured weakness, but it is quite another matter when red-tape bccomcs activc and venomously or stupidly vindictive. Only an over-zealous busybody would approve the taking of such vengeance upon a man guilty of deceiving the Department into believing that he had crosscd the yawning gulf between the Fourth and the Fifth Standard. The Government should certainly take steps to have the outrageous sentence on Clempson remitted without delay, and the Minister for ltailways should also make it his business to inquire into the reasons for the action of the officials responsible for the prosecution.