"MEAN AND MISERABLE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 July 1944, Page 4

"MEAN AND MISERABLE"

It was recently reported that soldier amputees in a Red Cross hospital in Wellington were the victims of a very mean theft. The men, who are learning to walk, obtained the use of a small car, which they kept in a garage attached to the hospital. When they went to get it on a recent morning they found that the garage lock had been broken, and the battery and spare wheel and tyre stolen. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. There have been a number of complaints by motorists in recent months of similar happenings. Offences of this nature are to be deplored at any time, as they indicate a regrettable lapse of social conscience. At a time when there is a shortage of tyres they are doubly serious. The only people who have tyres today are those who are engaged in essential business or private motorists who have conserved what they had before restrictions became necessary. Any loss is therefore a very serious matter. For that reason there will be full agreement with the attitude adopted by an Auckland Magistrate (Mr. Luxford) last month, when he sentenced a man who had admitted stealing four motor-car wheels, tyres, and tubes, to^nine months' imprisonment. Mr. Luxford declared that no mercy would be shown to those who indulged in tyre-stripping, and he added: "It ia- a.mean and miserably

offence and is an indication of the spirit of avarice and selfishness which is unfortunately abroad in the community. Whether it is a question of the black market or not, the Court will impose exemplary punishment." It was disclosed during the hearing of the case that an average of four cars a week had been taken from the city to the suburbs and there stripped of wheels, tyres, and tubes. There is only one way to stamp out that sort of thing— to make the punishment severe enough to act as a deterrent