CHILD WELFARE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 96, 18 January 1924, Page 13

CHILD WELFARE

Sir. —I have read the report in your paper on the whipping ordered for a boy under 12 years of age by the Court. Some time ago I noticed that a Magistrate told two girls that if they were boys he would order them to be birched. I am sure that if at any time the Court orders a whipping for girls there will be a great stir, and it will be tho last. Therefore, if it is not wise to whip girls there is reason to believe that harm is done by ■he same treatment of boys. I saw recently that Christie, who is now ii Auckland Gaol as an habitual riminal, was whipped for theft at ’asterton when he was 15 years old. : n reading Shakesueare I see that he

recognises that girls are no n ’ f >re tonder-hoarted than boys. His “Venus and Adonis” docs not in any way encourage us to believe that hardheartedness and tendency to evil is more evident in the boy than in the girl. I can remember a boy who was then 13 years and confined in a reformatory as a burglar. His name .1 was Frank, and I found him frank by nature. I asked to be allowed to help the boy, and this led to meeting his father, who told me that he had beaten the boy ti;ne after time, and it was of no avail. Frank had ' gone with another boy and entered a j house, out of which they took jewellery, and buried it in the garden. I was given charge of Frank, and took him with me in my travels. He had every opportunity to steal, and I mil him with some . friends for a week, but still ho did not steal. Ho was passionately fond of his mother, and when later on the ship ho worked on was wrecked, and he was lost, nis mother showed me the last letter she had received. It was a letter that brought some comfort to a brokenhearted mother. He told of how kindness won him. That whipping only cursed him. Cannot something more be made of the “Big Brother movement” and these boys handed to the care of those who will help them individually. I would gladly take the very worst boy the Court deals with and do for him what 1 did for Frank. I wonder whether those in high places consider what it must mean to boys who live in confined spaces in cities when the long school holidays come round. Until then they have had a regular occupation, and qu'te suddenly there is a violent change, in their lives, and they are not sufficiently developed to make the best use of the idle cond’tions. It would lie most interesting to 'have statistics to show 'the proport’on of boys who come to grief in holiday time and school . time. We have our censor of picture 'hows and the children look out for humorous pictures. I went to one in Wellington recently, but I found that the littles one who attended were being fed up on the most vile muck of murder and lust before the humourous picture came on. I am absolutely opposed to cruelty a.s a means of keep'ng human beings straight, but if there is to be cruelty it should be meted out to the adults who are destroying our children, and not to the little ones. —I am, etc., FRIEND OF CHILDREN. “There goes our chance cf getting h cheap bit of sheep country when the moratorium is lifted, ’ remarked a hard-looking cld farmer to a friend after the Wanganui wool, sale recently. “You have been waiting for that, have you?” was the reply. “Oh, yes,” coolly answered the first speaker. “We reckoned that there would be ‘snips’ in sheep land going about the end of the year, but this doesn’t look like it." So, it appears, <nen the rise in wool does not please all farmers.