PROFESSIONAL PAUPERISM.

Evening Star, Issue 7773, 19 November 1888, Page 3

PROFESSIONAL PA U PERISM.

TO THE EDITOR. As ye sow, 80 shall ye reap. Siu,—One is prompted to ask How much practical benefit is likely to accrue from the attention to this and cognate subjects just now attracting public notice ? Was our free emigration system, as evolved in the lniuds of our leaders, responsible for some of its growth in our midst '.' Agente were paid to send out emigrants at the taxpayers' expense, gathered from the slurr>3 of the Old Country. Even lunatics, in some instances, were certified to as being suitable, and sent out accordingly. Women and thieves landed from the Asia'and Caroline, some of whom immediately followed a life of prostitution, and were thus a double expense. From such as these we have the professional pauper. The question for our Parliamentarians and delegates should assume a practical shape, according to the growth of circumstances. We are governed by precept and punishment—the former as exemplified by Acts of Parliament, the latter by physical force in the form of police, and finally the gaol. With our domestic animals every care is taken to produce a strong, healthy breed. We have societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Is it not far more cruel to see marriages amongst persons suffering from moral and physical diseases and their children thus going lower and lower ? Is it not doubly cruel to these little ones ? Why should not the State be armed with authority to prevent these marriages? We raise the age of consent above the marriageable one. VVhy not raise the latter too? Early marriages in many cases lead_ to pauperism and crime. From time to time we read of papers and addresses from the Cardinal clown to the Salvation orators, but not a grain of practicability to ameliorate the sad condition of the poor and penniless. Surely we do not wish to see physical revolution a more powerful agent in the redress of grievances than Parliament and the Press. The Synods recently assembled told us such subjects could not emanate from them to receive praetical attention, —lam, etc., Sundowner. Dunedin, November 17.