JUVENILE CRIME

Evening Star, Issue 15515, 10 June 1914, Page 2

JUVENILE CRIME

HAS IT INCREASED IN NEW # ZEALAND?

THE CHIEF JUSTICE SAYS EMPHATICALLY “ NO.” THE STOUT WOOD CORRESPONDENCE. Nb"Tv. Milton, 7th April, 1914Dear Sir Robert,--Since <m the 3rd insfc 1 bare gone over warn the reports of the 'Magistrates ° centres dealing with jnv©ml© jftSs much worse rceoid. inf 8 ® to me in a most of deon your reported % ovr address crease in C ktt er wbrihjvou were at Nelson. In the , ilq Bareli, good enough to send me d ted you voluntarily funusnen ii vou tics of juvenile crime in • tin der rrc-sf Professor Tlnsteltou.Mark Views on Education misrepresented by an> a«> in p, lW dm. advocate some ‘ ri” k ca lled atteiiProfessor Mark, in that book, cai tion to the unsatisfactory Jarism in J'rance- He wrote a-T-rdcr th~ title * Rationalisms et Tia M Evolve has recently published a careful inquiry into toe of the “lav moral instruction m Franc . -witli the earlier traditional as v,m : Vl,x ** tho religious instruction. Ho «■ , c f conclusion that the the new teaching upon th© moral natm t of the scholars is inadequate And thu he believes to be because it tan. to attach itself to any - living , centre within the - child's nature, which the elements ot the moral n -mud themselves, as it were, spontaneously! as an organism.develops from original central germ. The traditiona religions had such an organic eentr. There is ample British testimony to con-

linn this tww. This statement by a man free from theological and anti-theological bias necossaril. carries verr screat weight. .. + I mpectMij direct vour t more recent evidence which iri’ther du credits your representation ot the moral condition of France under secularism t dav Lj the February number of tm ‘Nineteenth Century and After’ there i» a verv arresting article on the'' o the' French Republic, written by » Georges Chatterton Hill, docent- of sooo 1,-S- g at the University at Geneva In tins lengthy and exhaustive article special section is devoted to st juvenile crime m France. Prolessoi Chatterton Hill writes as follows We have said that the ecole sans Dieu a school of immorality and crime. Will anvone be found to-day capaole of denying' the increase —the steady, «iy quieting increase—of juvenile crime in France! Since the children educated at the ecole sans Dieu have begun to fill the ranks of the -rown-up citizens. th(v*numbcr of youthful criminals has increased in a truly alarming manner. This is nob the- place to go into the matter, hut let all those who may be interested in it read the statistics of #ie Ministry of Justice dealing with the Increase of crime, and notably of the number of crimes accompanied oy viofenee, and let them question the Judges of the 31 Courts of Appeal or the innumerable police tribunals, or the lan - yers who plead before the Assizes, or the State Prosecutors. The ecole laique, which was destined to regenerate Franco, has not been able to percent the constant increase in the number of juvenile criminals. And it js reasonable, nav, necessary, to seek a direct relation of” cause and effect between the two phenomena. We do not say. of course, that the ecole laiqiw intentionally and deliberately seeks to demoralise its pupils, but it most certainly fails to provide anything like an adequate basis for their moral developments. Th? moral education imparted in such schools is ridiculously inadequate.

Professor Chatterton Hill supports, his {.■( legation by a, footnote, in which he says: Compare the recent bock of M. Raymond Hesse, le Entrance ceupable with a preface by M. Henr: Robert. The latter, one of'the most eminent barristers in Paris, writes: —Then follows 31. Henri Robert's testimony in French to ■ the “terrible progress” in tho number of i rrimes committed by minors, and he finds a cause of this iu the absence of religious teaching. Your allegation, then, with regard to Ihe decrease in crime as a result of secular education in Franco is confronted by five authorities on crime and education: Thistleton Mark (of Manchester), 31. Devolve (in the book quoted above). Professor Chatterton Hill,- 31. Raymond Hesse, 31. Heri Robert- 1 find the judgment i of these five authorities confirmed by the statistics of French crime furnished by ‘The Statesman’s Year Book’ for 1912. I extract from this impartial and trustworthy authority the following: (a) The facts bearing on divorce. The following figures show a steady increase, and make very plain that moral life is poisoned to a growing extent at its fountainhead in the family; —Number of Divorces in Franco. —

(hi Here are the convictions for crime in the various French judicial courts, as given by this manual. As the population of Prance is nigh stationary through the race suicide that is going on there, the following figures prove a growing moral deterioration. From the following figures are excluded those under 16 r ears of age and some other cases: —Criminal Convictions in Franco.—

In order to complete my statement, I beg to ask you to reconsider the reports {torn out New Zealand Juvenile Courts as summed up in the following figures : —Convicted for Theft in New Zealand Juvenile Courts, —

These figures show a clear increase of 58 per cent, in the convictions of 1912 over 1910. When we view the total number of cases the result is as follows;—Total Convictions in Juvenile Court.—

Here we find a 70 per cent, increase of convictions ip 1913 over 1910- It is well to notice that there is art awful background of moral badness shown by a number of these cases. Children are taken from Homes reeking with the most disgusting moral badness, and the State dooms those children brought up in a godless uid immoral home to a non-moral, nonreligious, and. as Dr Cleary would say, “No God" system of education, and expects them to turn out good citizens. I submit, in concluding, that the extra‘Th© the series appeared in our iasa»'on~ May H3. the second on May 27, •ad the third on June 5.

ordinary assumption of your Nelson address, that iu a secular system of education we have- an adequate explanation of a nation’s ..moral rise, is not only nntnfe but absolutely opposed to truth. The experience of India, Japan, and France In our time prove your assumption to be based on a quicksand of error.- The latest witness on India is Sir Andrew Fraser, late Governor of Bengal, who, in bis ‘ Rajahs and Ryots of India,’ giVes abundant evidence of the moral impotence of secularism in education. Herbert Spencer, at the last, had to see that religion is necessary to a “ progressive people,” and It is to be deplored that he did not see this earlier in his life. I trust you will recognise the force of Spencer’s testimony, and may I express the hope that in this Bible-in-schools agitation you will take a neutral attitude. You will remember how Huxley, agnostic though he was, described an anti-Bible-in-schools agitation as a case of “ burning the ship to get rid of the cockroaches,” and ho would not care to inflict on his own children a no-Bible scheme of education. You may pardon. I hope, a personal allusion in closing this letter. I have more than once said that I would trust your ethical judgment on public questions before that of many an ecclesiastic. Only a few weeks ago, in the house o! the Rev. Kennedy Elliott, the late Rev. A. Thomson (of Petone) was there, and he was telling us of how you read the lessons for him once when he was conducting the Presbyterian service at Rotorua, and he' agreed with me in our respect and esteem for you, and also regretted that you, who had so much in common with us, were antagonistic to us in this Bible-in-schools agitation.—l am, etc., Robert Wood.

Wellington, May 2, 1914. .My dear Mr Wood, —Since I wrote you on April 15 I have received two letters from you. It would appear that your first despatched letter of the two was written before you got my letter of April 13. I suppose' you thought your letter of April 3 was not much of an answer to my letter of March 30, and you were anxious to supplement what you said in your letter of April 3. That fact makes me hope that on further consideration you will see that your letter of April 17 and the undated one sent from Roslyn aro equally no answer to my former letters. I have not had time up to the present to even acknowledge their receipt, for my business comes first with me, and I have been engaged all the time since I came back from Rotorua in mv court work.

May I say I am somewhat amazed at tho attitude you take up. I understood that the question between us was whether it was proper for the State to teach religion. If that is not the question which we were debating, but only whether my statistics were correct, and that the inference was that oar national unsectarian system of education had helped to bring about such a desirable result as a decrease in crime, might I ask how came you to make excursions to France, India, and Japan, and to state the opinion of tho late Rev. Dr Cairns, etc., etc.? What possible bearing had all these travels in side tracks on the two questions—(l) Were my statistics correct? (2) Was it a proper inference to draw that to our education systeft some, if not most, of the credit was due for the decrease in crime? Further, if these two questions are the only ones in dispute, why have you written so many pages of purely irrelevant matter?

Now, since you now think these two questions are the only ones in dispute, let me sum up the position. (1) Yon do not dispute, and cannot dispute, the figures I gave. They are the figures of the Government Statistician, and they show that so far as distinct convicted prisoners arc concerned under 20 years of age, the number per 10,000 fell from 3.69 in 1887—the first year in which there is a record of such figures—to 1.24 in 1912. The rate in 1913 was 1.13. My figures are correct. You have in your letter taken the last three years, and you have the temerity to say that, according to the statistics furnished, crime has been on the increase during the last three years. The rate per 10,000 for the past fonr years is; 1910, 1.01; 1911, 0.83; 1912, 1.24; 1013, 1.13. Your eyes see what they are prepared to see. Your excursion into what you called “Juvenile Crime ” that is, cases brought before tho Children’s Court, and many of which were not crimes, is so absurd that I am astonished that you should have ventured to have alluded to the matter again. (2) And now as to my inference that our secular education helped. If you will read the fuller account of what" I said, which appeared in the Nelson papers, and ■ which I see has been reproduced in the New Zealand ‘ Scot ’ of April 20, you will see that I even assumed that education in other than national schools may have helped in the wonderful decrease of our crime. I said “ denominational schools (I was alluding to the Roman Catholic Schools) had also done good work in teaching children to be good citizens.” What is vour reply? I quote your words: ” I have made no affirmation that our national schools were the cause of our increase in crime.” How could it be when crime has fallen? Any affirmation of such a character would have been worse than ludicrous. You add that you have piled up evidence flora Japan, India, and Franc© that the secular systems there aro universally impotent, and the young iu those lands are demoralised thereby. There are many replies to this affirmation : (1) What do you know of India or Japan? Have you any statistics? You have quoted none. What you call evidence is quotations from the writings or statements of men perhaps as biased in favor of orthodox creeds as you yourself, are. The historian Professor Moinnteen. speaking of this kind of evidence, called the people who made such statements “Ex vinculis eemocinanteG.” To show you how little reliancg may' bo placed on this thing that you call evidence, may' I give an illustration? You will remember that a few years ago our most eminent Catholic prelate, His Grace the Archbishop of New Zealand, made a statement that Protestantism had led to immorality, etc. Now, we know our Archbishop to be a man of high character, of upright life, and of kindly nature. You believe ho wae mistaken. and so do 1; but I suppose some of the 17 French archbishops or of the 6 J ! other French bishops could not have been blamed, if they had been engaged in a controversy 7 about the effect of Protestantism and its votaries, to have quoted Archbishop Redwood’s statement. Reallv, the opinions of men aro of very little value on any historical question, as Mommsen and Freeman long ago pointed out. You have again referred to France, and I am glad to see you have one reliable book of statistics in your reach —the •Statesman's Year Book’ Now, do you mean to suy that crime lias increased in France? I have had the hooks published iu France from which, no doubt, the ‘Statesman's Year Book ’ has got it* figures. What are the figures ? Let rue take serious crime filet —that is. convictions in the Assizes Courts, the highest criminal courts. In ISS3 there were 5,489 convictions; in 1909 there were 1,975. 1 may give you the statistics rear bv rear, and I also give veu the rate per ‘IO.’OOO of the population:

It will be seen, therefore, that serious crime in. France has fatten to nearly onehalf what it was before the secular system of education was introduced. Your French figures follow those of your juvenile, crime. Take, if you please, all Ilia convictions of all crimes, breaches of by-laws, etc., and call them crime. The total in France in 1909 was 713,637. Many of those were convictions of person# on several occasion?. They are not distinct individual conviclions, such as 1 havg, mentioned in New

Zealand statistic*; and iu 1909 the estimated population in Franco was about 394 millions. In England there was before all the court* 743,197 cases, and the population was only crime there -were sentenced in the Assizes Courts in England 3,084; at Quarter Sessions, also for serious crimes, 8,781; and sentenced by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction, 551,675. In all 663,640 tyere sentenced. You will notice that there were more convictions for serious crime in Englatid than in France, though the population of*. France is greater. I have before pointed out., as Sir Robert Giffen showed in his, illuminating paper on ‘Criminal Statistics’.’ read in Tasmania some years ago, that comparisons of one country with another is almost impossible so far as crime is concerned, because the legislation and administration are both different. ■ • ■

Xu Scotland, as you will no doubt have seen, there was an increase of crime in 1912 of 4.7 per cent., and they have the Bible in public schools in Scotland. Let me give you two short quotations from tho introduction to the Criminal Statistics of England and Wales for tho year 1909.’ Tho paper was presented to Parliament by command of His Majesty, and is No. C.D., 5,473. It says: “ The high figure for crime, which was a marked feature in the statistics of 1908, is again apparent in the 1909 statistics. . . . For the years 1834-98 the

annual average was 62,208, for 1899-05 it was 55,018. for 19044)8 it was 62,000, and for 1909 it was 67,149. If we look at crime in proportion to population, the same fact presents itself' in a different way. During the last century the proportion of crime to population tended to fall—during this century it has risen.” Witli the Bible-peading in schools and right of entry and religious schools in England and Wales, crime has increased; whilst in France, under a secular system, it has fallen. Do you not think you might profitably spend some time over the judicial statistics of England and Wales, Part 1, ‘ Criminal Statistics,’ instead, of listening to fancy stories about France, India, and Japan? You have ventured into political philosophy, and you have come to the conclusion, it would appear, that the functions of the State are to be determined from time to time by majorities, and that it is pure . sophistry to say that they (the people) are chained to any a priori theory about what the State “shall do or not do.” This is very funny. May X ask wH&t n arrant you have for calling it an a priori theory? I apprehend the constitution of tho United States of America was based ■>n the result of history and experience. Tho American people knew what had happened in the- past, and they framed their constitution accordingly. No doubt it was once “ Vox populi vox Dei.” I was not aware that that had boon embodied in any orthodox treed. If a majority can do anything they please, and if whatever they do is right, then clearly the majority in Ireland can make their own Catholic Church a State Church in Ireland, .and episcopacy could also rule in New Zealand. You and I belong to minorities, and according to you we have no rights. To give equal liberty to all is an a priori theory that cannot bind the majority. You must see where the Bible-in-Schools League have led you, and if the Indians or Japanese expelled all Christians that would be within the rights of those nations, for their people cannot be bound by any a priori theory of equal liberty. It is"not necessary to cay anything more about a voluntaryism and its abandonment by the descendants of the United Presbyterians. You next refer to my statement that it is immoral training to teach the children that Genesis is time. Is the story in Genesis as it would be read by children, and as it? is read by millions of people, True? If not, ought children to bo taught the truth about it.. If they aro not, they are subjected to immoral training. Only a few words about your second letter are necessary, for I have dealt with your “ evidence ” ro Franee, and your citation of two authors is not evidence. lam not aware I have dealt with divorce in France. There is none in Spain, Is Spain more moral than France? You have, strange to say, revived juvenile crime, and deal now with thefts. Again your figure* are inaccurate. Let me take Wellington. You say there were 97 convictions for theft in 1912. What are the correct figures? I quote a Government return (H.-208, 1913). There were 100 cases, but not ICO individuals, before the courts. There is no record of the distinct individuals brought before the courts. Some were brought more than once before the courts. Of those 100 cases three were dismissed and two withdrawn. Where do you then get your 97 convictions? A pupil in a district school would tell you that if you take 5 from 100, 97 are not left. ‘How is it you blunder so oftefi in your figures? Does invincible bias destroy your knowledge of addition and subtraction? Then 19 were admonished and discharged; 9 ordered to come up for sentence; 26 ordered whippings; 8 sent to Industrial School, and 6 orders made against them: and 25 convicted and discharged. That is tho record. Your talk of “total convictions in Juvenile Court” is a misuse of language, and I am amazed that,, with the figures before you. you should have inserted it. As ’Christchurch had the largest number in 1912, let me take your “convictions.” Anyone reading your table would assume there wore 204 convictions of juvenile crime. First, the number of apprehensions was 248. Ten of them wore dis- ( missed and one case- withdrawn; that left 237 apprehended. Of those, 97 were admonished and discharged, 78 committed to Industrial School, 19 fined, 1 committed for trial, 5 convicted and ordered to come up for sentence, and 37 convicted and discharged ; but, remember, these were not all juvenile crimes. Six were children of poor parents, 2 charged with living with drunkards, 2 charged with living with prostitutes, 6 charged with having no means of subsistence, 2 sleeping in open air, 2 with cycling on footpath, 11 cycling at night without light, 2 for smoking cigarettes, etc., etc.; and you have the temerity to call these, things juvenile primes! Before you can bring any charge about juvenile crime against the result of our secular school system, quote, if you can, the number (if any) who were convicted who had gone through the Sixth Standard of our public schools. I doubt if there were half a dozen. And you, who complain of immorality and crime, go on repeating what a slight investigation of figures would show to be untrue, and no charge against our public schools. You have again referred to Herbert Spencer. I asked you to give me a reference where Spencer speaks about Biblical teaching. I know the position he took up in reference to religion. You will find it in his autobiography, written when he was 73 years of age, 'He then looked upon religion as a necessary phase of civilisation, ami he did not confine this to the Christian religion. May I make a short quotation ; Thus I have come more and more to look calmly on forms of religious belief to which I had in earlier days a pronounced aversion. Holding that they are in the main naturally adapted to their respective peoples and times, it now seems to me well that they should severally live and work as long as the conditions permit, and, further, that sudden changes of religious institutions, as of political institutions, are certain to be followed by reactions. . . . If it he asked why, thinking thus, 1 havq persevered in setting forth views at variance with current, creeds, my reply is the one elsewhere made: It is for each to utter that which ho sincerely believes to be true, and, adding his unit of influence to all other units, leave tho results to work themselves out. In closing this correspondence, may I again wish' you well ’—Yours, etc., Robert Stout.

Dear Sir Robert,—l have no desire to encroach upon your time, but your interesting letter of 13th inst. from Rotorua contains statements which need comment and reply. 1. You write ; The real question, however, between us is’: " Ought the iState to teach religion?” And may I be pardoned saying that you have continually strayed off this track and followed numerous bypaths, thus -evading ti|e question at issue.

Here you show a very serious lapse of memory. I never raised such a question. The real question was the one raised by you in your address to the grand jury at Nelson, which, according to the Dress Association, was as follows : -Sir Robert Stout referred to the decrease of juvenile crime iu New Zealand. . . , The decrease shown could only bo explained by the national system,of education. ‘ ,■ It was this remarkable statement lhat induced me, to write to you for information and explanation. Tho Press Association represented you as affirming : - .Kr. (a) A decrease in juvenile crime. (b) That the explanation of this moral rise was to be found in our

secular school system. Now, as regards the first affirmation, it has clearly been demonstrated that juvenile crime, according to tho statistics, has been on the increase during the past three years. I made no statement to the effect that the courts of justice were sending minors to reformatories instead of to gaols; but I did say, on the authority of one of om- most experienced social service agents, that the last thing a wise magistrate to-day will do is to send a juvenile delinquent either to a gaol or an industrial school. This being the case, tho number of minors in gaols or in reformatories is no exact measure of our moral rise or fall. I accept your correction of the. statement given to me that no longer did wc put children of tender years in gaol. The protest, then, of the humanitarian Colonel Hume, made in 1882, is ignored to-day. We have the ignorant and brutal English justices’ justice, which would send a man to gaol who stole a loaf when he was starving, and allow a brute who nearly kicked his wife to death to get off with a fine of two pounds! .Surely the New' Zealand Judge’s justice who sends a child of 10 years to gaol in 1912 is on a level with the ignorant and brutal Snglish justices’ justice, which has rightly been held up to execration and denunciation. I would further point out that not a particlo of evidence has been given by you to prove that your second affirmation—viz., tire causal connection between a secular systenj of education and a decrease in juvenile crime. I have made no affirmation that our national schools were the cause of an increase in crime, but I have piled up evidence from Japan, India, and France that the secular systems there are morally impotent, and the. young in these lands are demoralised thereby. You rightly affirmed long ago that our system, while theoretically secular, was practically religious to some extent, and this is true to-day; and it is this inconsistency in our school system that has saved it from being the moral curse that “secularism” is reported to be in France, India, and Japan. But we wish our system strengthened from the moral standpoint, and that the Bile message should be heard in the schools, and in this way the inconsistency of- our system shall bo re moved. .The question “Ought the Stats to teach religion ?” raises an interesting academic question, the discussion of which would be very disastrous to what seems a favorite assumption of yours. You seem indinod to rule out the Bible in the schools as unjust, because it is not the function of tho State to teach religion. I would respectfully point out that this is simply begging the whole question, lb is surely absurd at this time of the day to rule out any proposed reform by tho application of an a priori theory about the function of the State. I take it that the State is not an entity separate and apart from the citizens of a country.The people can surely determine the functions of Government for themselves, and it is pure sophistry to say that they are chained to any a priori theory about what the State shall do or not do. Even a pagan said: “As the State was formed to. make,life possible, so it exists to make life good,” and surely the moral betterment of our educational system is a legitimate function of the State. Dr Rainy wisely said a good many years ago in this connection : Theory on matters of this kind has only after all veiy limited rights. It is only boys and lads and men who fail to outgrow that condition who allow themselves to be. ruled by any theory on such a subject as the precise guidance and right of tho State2. The extreme Scottish Voluntaryism you recall and praise never gripped the' Presbyterian Church nor the Scottish people. lam not aware that the most extreme typo of Voluntaryism ever showed, itself in an anti-Bible-in-schools crusade in your day, or in any other day. IfVoluntaries did so they abandoned the principles of John Knox, as set forth in his Book of Discipline! Tho Presbyterian who fights for the Bible iu our national schools is simply seeking to guard his national heritage, and ho is following in the foot- 1 , stops of tho Presbyterian stalwarts of the piast. The Presbyterian Church always and -everywhere has stood for the Bible in the national schools of a preponderantly Christian people. It stands by a principle of John Knox, who said to legislatois: “Of necessity it is that your honors be most careful of the virtuous education and godly upbringing of the youth of the land.”

3. I have read with pain your statement, made by insinuation, that Bibls-tcaching ■amounts to ‘'immoral training,” that to teach children to believe the Bible is to inflict an “injury on youthful minds.” Tiro Bible is to he understood in the light of its great central message, and this message you absolutely ignore, and what you say amounts to caricature. Agnostics, like Matthew Arnold and T. 11. Huxley, recognised the tremendous moral worth of the Bible, and, because of its moral worth, said it should b© in the schools, but you have no sympathy evidently with such men. Your opposition to tho Bible in the schools at bottom, then, would, mean opposition to the Bible itself. Am 1 forced to come to this conclusion, or is there another explanation of your works? In this' attitude towards the Bible you break away from the. best and brainiest of British thinkers in our age, and in paUf, ages. Such men would endorse the wisdom of Whittier’s judgment: Wc search the world for tiulli: we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful From graven stone and written scroll. From till old (lower Helds of lire soul ; And, weary seekers of the best. Wo come back laden from our finest To find that all the sagas said Is in the Bock our mothers read. 4. 1 cordially agree with you in y,,ur regard fur the rights of conscience and abhorrence of intolerance and persecution. 1 know that the history of the past tells of the intolerance of ecclesiastical religion, but it lolls al-o of the in:e lm ante of «r----ganised ami-fin islimiity. I am not aware that the philosophers of what has hern culled “ Frcctnought -man like Hobbes, and .David Hume, and (,'omjile—believed in onr modem doctrine <■!' liberty which Caino to us through ilia i cl ini on of .Jesus Christ, It is only in Christianity that- the great truths set forth by the words "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’’ lind an adequate justification and explanation. The intolerance of the secularist is our present New Zealand }>enl. He Pearson, in Victoria, mutilated the lesson books and treated a- teacher who conducted a, Sunday service in his school as a. criminal in (he interest of secular education. Wo won't have this at any price in Xow Zealand, and so the battle for the. Bible is a. battle for rights of the people to have I heir children educated in the way they wish. Reciprocating your expression of regard, and with every good wish— I am. etc.. KoaEHT Woo I), - Sir Robert Stout, K.C.M.0., Wellington. \ 11th May, 1914. Dear Sir Robert, —Your let lor of May 7 and note of May 9, closing this correspondence, have just corns to hand. You es-em to lose your usual geniality in soma of your sentences, and as regards bias you must know that- auti-thcolcgical Idas k a weakness you, like others c i your way of thinking, may fall into. lii some notes I am preparing for the Press on ‘ls Juvenile Crime increasing? Sir Robert Stout’s Affirmations and Ass urnsnrnptions Criticised,’ I made the convictions about the cases of theft in Wellington 95, not 97. 1 telco it that all were found guilty, unless there was a withdrawal or dismissal-

The (Subject ;,f (his correspondence arcs'; entirely out of the Press telegram of what you said in Nelson, A. about tho function of the .Stale would be iu connection with Bible in school* a senseless ■logomachy. Some anti-Bible zealots have made .themselves J.he laughing stock'd the community by oracularly saying the Bible must be shut out of the school*, because it is not the function of the State to teach religion.—l anV, etc., llormßT Wood. Sir Robert Stout, K.C.M.G., Wellington.

Year. 1906 ... . 10,573 1907 ... . 10,958 1908 ... . 11.515 1909 ... . 12,874 191Q ... - 13,049

Assize Correctional Police Year. Courts. Tribunals. Courts. 1904 2,047 194,565 413,114 1905 2.285 196.546 434,928 1906 2,107 188,906 403,173 1907 ' 2,351' 202,572 491,021 1908 2,597 206,525 oOo, 1 2o

1910. 1911. 1912. Auckland ... • .. 51 71 102 Wellington .. 45 74 97 Christchurch . .. 51 35 56 Dunedin ... • .. 41 26 32 Total ... 168 216 287

Auckland ■ • • ■ Wellington Christchurch . Dunedin • • 1910. ... 147 ... 105 .. 92 ... SO 1911. 123 151 isi 54 1912. 175 175 204 '54 Total ...1si 479 608

Year. Convictions Convictions Per 10,000 of Population. 1885 5.480 0.92 1887 5179 0.83 1583 2.989 0.78 1891 2,933 ... 0.76 1892 2,945 0.77 1894 2.795 0.75 1696 2,404 0.62 1856 3,226 0.68 1500 3,243 0-68 1902 1,973 0.61 1905 ... ... 1,996 ... 0.51 1904 2.047 ... 0.52 1906 2,107 ... 0.64 1903 2,379 0.61 1909 1.975 0.50