CHILD SEDUCER.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2742, 7 September 1923, Page 4

CHILD SEDUCER.

BESTIAL SUGGCSTIONS TO LITTLE GIRL; ALARMING EPISODE IN RANGIHKEI STREET. PARENTS' BEWARE! The white flower of a child's purity is the purest thing under the sun. And to pollute that purity with the foul breath of sexual suggestion is on© of the vilest crimes of which depraved humanity is capable. On Wednesday a nine-year-old girl riding a cycle In Rangitikei Street found that, her chain had come off, and being some distance from her destination she asked a male passerby to help her. She was a confiding 1 child, and she confided in an abject scoundrel. Under the excuse that he needed % spanner, this male—how could he be called a man—led the little girl along Featherston Street and immediately commenced to bombard her pure mind with a string of the foulest sexual questions and suggestions, meanwhile holding on to the bicycle to prevent her escape. Fortunately, the girl, although terrified and horrified, managed to resist and eventually broke away, but arrived home in a collapsed state. She was able to give a fairly clear description of the appearance of the would-be destroyer of a child's most sacred possession. This fiend haa touched moral rock-bottom early in life. He is apparently in the early twenties, of middle height and dark, wearing at the time a striped grey suit. Two things about him which the little girl remembered were that his hands appeared to be stained a brown tint, as though with iodine, and he wore his hair in that effeminate style affected by certain of the youth of this land, and known as the "brush back." The father of the little girl, as all fathers would, "saw red," and immediately set out on a search, at the same time informing the police. But so far no trace has been found of the culprit. It is not known whether the childseducer is a resident of the vicinity in which he attempted his dreadful deed, or whether he was merely a passer-by. Bui no parent in that thickly-popu-lated area—or anywhere in Palmerston for that matter—will feel that his girls are safe while such a one is at large. He should be hunted down mercilessly—for the sake of the little ones.