SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 6

SOCIAL LIFE IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

■» AQKE4.T deal has lately been heard of the proposed banging of two youths in Sydney for rape, and our exchanges are filled with accounts cf the efforts made to obtain a reprieve on their behalf, which in the end. were successful. When Sir Henry Parkes was asked in the House thejintentions of the Executive on the numerous mercy-petitions which had been addressed to it, he stated the case and his reasons clearly:—"The question of the abolition of capital punishment for rape had been tried oeveral times, and the legislature had refused to amond the law which fixes the punishment of death for rape. The case of these unhappy young men ie one so aggravated in all its circumstances, so without any redeeming feature, that if the law did not take its coarse in this case, it never could properly he pat in force again. And it is a singular thing that, in tho mock sentimentality for these two unhappy young men, no siDgle thought appears to be entertained for the unfortunate young girl. She was a young girl just entering upon womanhood. She was in poor circumstances, compelled to go out to hard nervics to earn her living; but, in the midst of all rude conduct, and in the midst of all etroggles, she had preserved her purity. Her service was so bard that amongst other duties she went a distance of a mile to fetch cows home, and I presume this was part of her business every day. These two young men were her fellowservants. She had never given them the slightest encouragement to familiarity. They went to a third party, and endeavoured to induce him to join them—for a'l three to ravish this unhappy young girl. He refused, telling them of the enormity of their contemplated crime. The other two then went, planted themselves behind a busb, and as the poor girl comes past them, they spring out upon her like wild beasta. They throw her down. One of them holds her while the other commits the capital offence. When that is over, he hoi is the unfortunate girl while the second mail commits the capital offence. The evidence shews that there was no familiarity, though they lived together as servants, to give the slightest encouragement to this enormous crime. ' And the medical testimony goes clearly to shew that the poor girl was a virgin when this atrocious crime was committed upon her. I say— and I say fearlessly—that human life is not the most valuable thing in this world. I say that the honour of a woman, the honour of our virgins.is infinitely above human life. And if the law ever ought to take its course in the case of the helpless, unfortunate, poor young creature, who*, in this ruffianly manner, was ravished—she piteously struggling, piteously appealing to the second man to protect her, but receiving no mercy, no consideration whatever from them." An exchange says :—One of the youths at the time of the offence wa3 but 14 years and 10 months old, and the other not 21, and this circumstances is the strongest argument in favour of the petitioners, and the only one likely to be effective. In reply to a deputation, Sir Alfred Stephen said that it was impossible for him not to remember that Bome of the most reckless crimes in this colony had been committed by youth, and that he could see no reason in what had been urged t>3 remit the penalty of death. So great, however, has been the pressure from the country districts, that the Executive has given way to tho popular clamour, which cannot but have, under any circumstances, a bad preeedental effect. The larrikin nuisance, particularly as regards females in, this city, has become nigh intolerable. In the suburban etreets, particularly on Sunday evenings, no respectable girl can pass along after dusk without insult: Representation after representation is made to the police authorities in the hope of protective measures being taken, but -without avail; and whether it is from the fact that the constables are too weak to cope with the rowdy element, or that sympathy exists with their brutal horae-play in high quarters, the fact remaine that the larrikins do pretty much as they. like. Onr foreign visitors, accustomed to courteous consideration in the places they visit, will, it is feared, be bot sorrily impressed with our social civilisation ; and unless something is done before the Exhibition to control holiday mob ruffianism, we may expect to be disgraced. Amongst the letters which have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on the case of Metcalfe aud Wilkinson, is the following, from the " Mother of a Family": — "Very few gentlemen in Sydney can imagine what a yist mother has to endure with a family of girls in the busb, who have to go to eervice as soon as they are able to bo useful. I can safely vouch that there is hardly one mother out of every twenty that can say they have reared their families without some wrong done to one or more of them ; but, rather than expose their daughters, bear it like some dark cloud hanging over them. Sir Henry Parkes will receive the prayers and gratitude of every pro-perly-minded lady in the colony. Hanging is i\ frightful death, but as they shew; d no mercy, they should havo none meted out to them."