Evening Post THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17,1881. TREATMENT OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 39, 17 February 1881, Page 2

Evening Post THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1881. TREATMENT OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

A host ridiculous fuss has been made in Dunedin because Mr. I. N. Watt, the Resident Magistrate at that place, has given a very wholesome and much needed lesson to some incipient criminals of the so-called " larrikin" class, which is growing into such a curse in colonial communities. Several yonng rascals were convicted on the dearest evidence of having stolen apples. The value of the fruit in that particular case was very trifling, but the culprits admitted having Stolen a large quantity of apples on the previous evening, and in fact confessed p* being- in the habit of committing this particular description of petty larceny. v lur. Watt— reify properly, in our opinion^ sentenced the young thieves to be__»m« prisoned for six.ho.nrs, to be birched during their imprisonment, and a#erj»r£ ft p

seat to the Industrial School until they attained the age of 15 year 3. On this, we are told, there wan " a mo3t heart-rending scene, the parents praying in bitter anguish for mercy, and imploring the Magistrate in God's name not to take their children from them." The mother of one of the boys, however, who had been particularly demonstrative in her shrieks for mercy, admitted that she was living on the earnings of this poor little sinner, who, although only 13 years old, was a boiler-cleaner at Port Chalmers. What she dreaded, therefore, was the loss not of the child but of his earnings. Another boy was Bhown to have been grossly neglected by his parents, and in short the whole evidence went to prove that these jnveni'e applestealers were on the high road to become permanent additions to the criminal class. It waa therefore assuredly the truest kindness to administer a sharp immediate chastisement for the actaal offence, and to guard them from future temptation by placing them within the Industrial School. Snch was the view taken by Mr. Watt, and very justly. Not so thought some of the Dunedin papers, which denounced Mr. Watt as a perfect monster of cruelty, whose inhumanity was only equalled by his eccentricity, and wound np by remarking that "the sooner Mr Watt retires upon his superannuation allowance to which his many years of service entitle him the better it will be for the ends of justice and for his own reputation." Ihis iB indeed "tall talk," and the puzzle is to understand " what it ia all about. " Surely our Dunedin contemporaries will not Beriously contend that it is right to steal apples, or flowers, or poultry, or Bank notes, or horses P If it is wrong to steal at all the value of the articles stolen does net affect the degree of moral turpitude. The boy who will steal one apple will steal a hundred if he gets the chance. If he will steal apple.9 or flowers he will also steal money if he has a chance of doing so with probable impunity. For his own sake, as well as for that of the community it is necessary that he should be sternly taught that stealing will not be permitted/and that if he commits a theft he incurs a sharp penalty. One paper actually urges that there is "a spice of adventure" about apple-stealing, which has caused that offence always to be leniently looked upon and dealt with. If the " spice of adventure " which may attach to any particular crime forms any plea in extenuation of punishment, then most certainly burglars and highway' robbers ought to go scot free, and Neb Kelly ought not to have been hanged. That in fact was the view taken by his disreputable sympathisers, who brought such grave discredit on themselves and their colony by their preposterous proceedings. Such an argument will not hold water for a moment. All crime is despicable and unheroic, but the imaginative faculties which att..ch any spice of heroism to appleatealingmust be very highly developed. Stealing apples or flowers is essentially a mean, contemptible, cowardly Bort of crime, just the sort of sneaking aotion -which has a tendency to debase a boy's mind, and form it in the direction of permanent criminality. We are heartily glad to find one .New Zealand magistrate, at any rate, disregarding all this morbid and mawkish gush of sickly sentimentalism, and reading these rascally young thieves the wholesome leason that crime involves punishment, instead of weakly letting them go unchastised with some wretched little bit of namby-pamby, goodygoody caution " never to do so no more." It is this deplorable prevalence of wishywashy maudlin sentimentality that leads to half the crime in the country by encouraging the belief that it can be perpetrated with immunity. The juvenile criminals who are " let off easily" never feel the slightest gratitude to their too lenient judge, but invariably sneer at him as "an old sott head," and join their companions in ridieulinghiamildnessandgullibility. Wewarmly commend Mr. Watt's action, not only in regard to the punishment to which he sentenced the apple- stealers, viz., six hours' imprisonment and a birching, but also for the wise and thoughtful precaution which he took — the law enabling him to do so — to save these young criminals from the life of crime into which they were drifting, to protect them from the evil influences to which they had become subject, and to compensate them for the neglect of their parents by sending them to the Industrial School until they reached the age of 15 years. This does not necessarily involve total separation from their parents, unless the latter prove themselves unfit to have the custody and training of their children, but it enables the law, which they have infringed, to keep its hold on them, and to see that they are saved from the peril in which they stand. Mr. WArTs remarks on this head are so just and forcible that they deserve quoting. He said: — "The committal to the Industrial School is really no ' punishment,' as the boys upon good behaviour are almost immediately let out to their own parents, but fortifies the control of the parents by letting the boys know that if their parents are unable to keep them under proper control, there is a power behind that can do so ; for they can at any time be remitted back to the school during the currency of their respective sentences. This has been the practice of Mr. Titchenkr for some time past, and appears to have been very beneficial. I think by this means we can to a great extent prevent larrikinism." We hope that those magistrates who, from mistaken ideas of kindness, treat " first offences " with sadly misplaced leniency will not be above taking a lesson from the very sensible and judicious action of Mr. Watt. We believe that those boys will live to feel deeply grateful to him for thus timely rescuing them from an impending career of crime. Let it be remembered that boys who will steal fruit from orchards or flowers from gardens will learn to commit larger thefts by degrees as their moral instincts become blunted and the predatoryinclination developed; and in the name of common sense and honesty let us have no more of such idle prating as that which has been launched at Mr. Watt for his welltimed and humane interposition between several juvenile thieves and a career of crime. We say to all New Zealand Magistrates, " Go and do likewise."