VARSITY HOOLIGANS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 13948, 2 January 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

VARSITY HOOLIGANS.

M.F. SUGGESTS BIRCH FOR UNDER-

GRADUATES. Rowdyism at Oxford University was severely condemned by Mr. E. N. Bennett, M.P. for the Woodstock Division, in a speech at a trade exhibition in the municipal buildings. The hon. member, in proposing the toast of "The City of Oxford," said that owing to some recent outrages on the public peace committed by young hooligans in the University—he had no other name by which to call them—the University had established the precedent of not claiming cognisance or jurisdiction in the cases of these misdemeanours. He hoped that this precedent had come to stay. During his residence in Oxford lie had been frequently amazed at the toleration which had been shown by the citizens in the theatre and streets and elsewhere to acts committed by the members of the University— an insignificant minority, but still by members of the University. Ho was afraid his remarks would not find approval in all quarters. He saw the Rev. Lord W. Gascoyno Cecil had written to the newspapers complaining that his fastidious and aristocratic offspring had been handled by " clumsy lower-class policemen;" and side by side with that complaint was the extenuation that the offence was merely committed ; n the ebullitions of extreme youth. i'ho speaker questioned very much if a man who had the right to vote at 21 could expect his offences to be pardoned or extenuated on the ground of extreme youth. He noticed that one of these young gentlemen complained that he had been carried into the police station face downwards. Ho hoped that the next time a case of this kind came before the city magistrates the offenders would again bo placed in that position and that some salutary strokes of the birch-rod—which had already been found efficacious in the cases of other children in lower life—would bo given them.

Further, in cases of serious outrages on property, such as that which took place before, the pageant— which was unrelieved by a gleam of humour—he hoped that the city magistrate's would inflict the same sort of punishment that would be awarded if the delinquents came from the lower ranks of society, and send them to gaol for a few days. That was the sort of punishment which would stop this kind of thing, and the only thing that would stop it.