SOCIAL FAILURES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVIII, Issue 11462, 28 December 1897, Page 3

SOCIAL FAILURES.

TO THE EDITOB.

Sib, —Everyone who lias a fellow feeling will be pleased with your article with the above heading, and the one in vindication of the Samaritan Home in your issue of Saturday last, though saddened by thereportof the existing evils in the cathedral city of Christchurch, supposed to be one of the most moral cities in New Zealand. You,, will, however, I trust, allow me to take exception to the paragraph—“ The Mother Country has left her taint on the people of these islands; insanity, depravity and. disease stepped ashore with the pioneerimmigrants.” This cannot fairly be applied to this Canterbury settlement. The. writer is not aware of those remarks beingapplicable to any of its pioneers as being insane, depraved or physically incapable. The statistics in the article on “The Vindication of the Samaritan Home" showing that half the number of the inmates-are-Inebriates, together with the quotation froih Inspector Broham’s report on that institution, all go to show to an unprejudiced person how much less would be. the misery and consequent need of such institutions, and how many blessings would accrue to the inhabitants of these beautiful islands, if they would have the moral courage to prohibit King Alcohol from having any power to reign amongst them. —I am, etc., *A PIONEER IMMIGRANT. [Of course, our allusion to the law of heredity was intended to have a general, not a personal application.—Ed. L.T.]