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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9150, 4 September 1888, Page 4

About the criminal sessions of the Supreme Court which opened yesterday there is not much to be said in the way of moralising. The calendar is an exceedingly light one. Even some of the charges which are placed under the denomination of serious crime can be called so only technically, and are in reality trivial offences. For instance, one charge of burglary is a case of a man who hid himself in a hotel, pocketed a bottle of rum and a bottle of whisky, and then slipped out when he thought all was quiet. It is very gratifying that the calendar is light. We remember a good many years ago, at a time when Auckland was groaning under "depression," that the learned Judge who then presided at the Supreme Court sessions said that we must expect when table employment could not be had, and many were pinched

by want of means, that in such tim M an increase must be expected in the' criminal calendar. If the reasoning of that Judge was right, then the depros sion which now is has not yet b ee " felt severely ; at all events, it does not appear that it has in any way caused an increase in crime. There is not a sinel case on the calendar resembling th'os 6 cases which we see so frequently in the Courts at home, where rnen and women commit crimes as the end of a long period of suffering and destitution. With a font in if ance of remunerative prices for our staple exports, and a careful watchful ness over our public expenditure we may confidently expect better employ' ment than at present for our mechanics and labourers. But in the meantime it seems to be evidenced by the criminal calendars of the Supreme Court, that crime is not on the increase in |L colony.