ATTACK ON SOCIETY SINS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12647, 6 January 1904, Page 4

ATTACK ON SOCIETY SINS.

The respectable, well-dressed people who gathered at the Mansion House yesterday afternoon (says the London “Chronicle” of November 7th) in support of the London Diocesan Police Court Mission, may have been a little startled when they were assured by the Bishop of Stepney that many of the young men he had dealt with in prison, as a prison chaplain, were just like their sons and brothers whom he knew as Oxford undergraduates; and that even a girl who had been convicted of being “drunk and disorderly” might very well not be inherently worse than many young ladies. It was a difference of privileges and opportunities and social habits. Young men at Oxford, when they had a “ jolly evening,” made an infinity of noise, and often destroyed a good deal of property that did not belong to them; only next morning they were brought before a benevolent person like himself, and got “gated,” while young men in another rank of life were hauled up in the police court and were sent to prison. There were young ladies in very high classes of society, proceeded the Bishop, who dared not refuse a little gamble for fear of giving offence to their host and hostess; and, in a different social circle, girls were afraid to refuse a drink, and so got into trouble. The great need in all these cases was for some good neighbour to stand surety for their behaviour, and it was this neighbour whom the Police Court Mission strove to provide—a neighbour full of trust and hope, looking out for the best and not the worst.