HOW POLICE PROTECTION-—18 EXTENDED TO PARNELL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1900, 17 February 1870, Page 7

HOW POLICE PROTECTION- —18 EXTENDED TO PARNELL.

To the Editor of the Herald. Sir, —A particular settler of this district, who is said to be respectably connected, and whose temper and general conduct, in his sober moments, or lucrid intervals, offer no apparent contrast to tho generality of his neighbours, came home between twelve arid one o'clock yesterday—Sunday morning, deeply and deplorably under the drowning influence of that • dreadful and devastating enemy of the human race—the sly, insinuating, and absorbing demon of alcohol. His hideous and savage yelling and screaming quickly summoned the awakened and frightened neighbourhood to see, or to stare at, the monstrous domestic show. Tho scene was truly both melancholy and revolting, the wife and children, half distracted with terror, took quickly to their hiding-places, while tho raving husband and father commenced to hurl sticks and stones at the astonished bystanders. Luckily for his ISfeiily, instead of attacking them as usual while labouring under similar self-inflicted derangements, he began with savage ferocity to cudgel at his own door the man who generously volunteered to escort him home, in his helplessness, from tho degrading haunt of his bacchanalian bout in Mechanics' Bay.

Believing that, in this case, at all events, a cold bed and " free quarters" would be more effective as a reformatory than the muchvaunted " moral suasion," flippantly advocated by some of our superficial moral philosophers ns a substitute for the enlightened principles of " The Permissive Bill," we sent for a policeman in order to stop the fray ; but, behold, to our astonishment, such an officer oould not be found in tho whole of Parnell. ~WV were told that there was only one policeman stationed in the district, and that his official duties called him to Newmarket a few hours before this niidnipht and unsightly speetnele of the intoxicated father and the frightened mother was so shamele.-sly exhibited on the public thoroughfare—perhaps not a thousand ) ards from tho Windsor Castle. In a short time, however, this disordered man seetned to get a little sobered, and suddenly rushing into his own house he bolted the door after him ; and as his exit from our presence was not followed by nny of the usual hubbub and confusion which are the inseparable concomitants of the cowardly proceeding of beating tho wife, smashing the chairs, and breaking the crockery, the amazed crowd, believing that the alcoholic fever had considerably abated, dispersed, no doubt relleeling on the inadequate civic protection to life and property which exists in Parnell. Trusting that tho Government, will be induced to establish in this important district such an authority as will bo found sufficient to sccure, as far as possible, social and civil tranquility to the residents, by promptly repressing and punishing violence and outrage,—l am, &c., Oxe of tuk Spectators. Parnell. Feb. 4, 1870.