ONCE MORE THE PEA-RIFLE. Another Victim Slain.

Free Lance, Volume X, Issue 477, 21 August 1909, Page 6

ONCE MORE THE PEA-RIFLE. Another Victim Slain.

ANOTHER horror has just been added to the long list which from, tune to time has harrowed the feelings of the community. Down at Ohnstchuroh on Friday last a lad of fifteen, named Thomas Crosbery, took up a peanfie, pointed it at his mother, and, saying in idle sport : "I'll shoot you I" put a bullet through the poor woman's face. She died an hour and a half later. It is the old old story. The boy had. quite forgotten the weapon was loaded, and a terrible tragedy is the result of a heedless action. • • • Numerous other cases of a similar kind might be quoted without going far from home. It was only in March last that a boy of sixteen, named Percy Vlh Kensemberg, was accidentally shot and killed by his brother while they were camping out at Crofton with a couple of other lads. Nearly ©very district in the colony can furnish its quota to the tale of serious or fatal accidents with the reckless use of this most deadly of all tops We have urged again and again that its use should not only be forbidden to young fellows, but that every possible precaution should be taken to interdict its use aaid to punish people who sell this firearm to mere children. • • • Although the law expressly forbids the sale of pea^nfles to persons under the age of sixteen years, little boys are often seen with them in their hands, and it is perfectly obvious that the law is being pretty easily dodged or defied. The police will have to take more effective steps to protect the public from this constant danger than they have hitherto done, or else Parliament will have to arm them with greater powers in this regard than they already possess. It seems idle to trust to tihe average boy and the average dealer. « • • The pea-rifle has a subtle fascination for half-grown lads, and, in spite of shocking examples, they will continue to use it if left to themselves. As for the dealer, there will always be found some willing to e<rade the law in order to make a few shillings profit. Public safety demands that some means shall be devised to stamp out the pea-rifle altogether- Better that it should be banished from the country altogether than that dreadful accidents of the kind just chronicled should occur from time to time.