CLEARING OUT THE WASTERS

Free Lance, Volume XVII, Issue 907, 7 December 1917, Page 6

CLEARING OUT THE WASTERS

The Police Alive at Last. nnHE police had a sneak field day on Monday last, when four professional wasters, loafers, who consort with thieves and local rascality generally; were "sent up" for various terms of imprisonment. -We trust that the good, start now made by: the police vjill be followed up • until . the city streets, especially Willis-street, • Man-ners-street. and Courtenay-place are permanently cleared of the scores of loafers, most of them quite young' men, who are constantly propping up the lamp posts or hanging round the doors of certain hotels and , billiardrooms. Very few of these people ever seem to do any work, and yet they generally manage to be expensively if flashily attired,' and to have money -in their pockets. Many of • them, it is notorious, are professional spielers, who prey upon soldiers, in from camp, whom they shepherd from one hotel bar to another until they are "ripe" enough for the shearing. How it is . that these gentry have managed to escape military service is a mystery to most people. #■ . . : * ' 1 * " * But even if they ure unfits, for camp purposes, they should not be allowed to lead a lazy and semi-crimi-nal life at a time like the present.- We were under the impression that a re-cently-made war regulation gave the authorities power to arrest and divert to some .useful service any one who is found idle.v If so, the regulation in question might very well be made to apply to these young men who "toil not, neither do they spin"; but axe strongly suspected, and not without cause, of being as inclined to criminal practices as they are disinclined to do any. honest work.- The. police should be given full powers to deal drastically with what has long been a. public nuisance, and we look to the Minister of Justice to see that this is done..