CRIME IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14219, 16 November 1909, Page 4

CRIME IN AUCKLAND.

In his charge to the grand jury yesterday Mr. Justice Cooper, whom we are glad to welcome back to the city in which he first began his professional career, dwelt upon the state of crime in the Auckland district. Auckland is sometimes unfavourably compared with Wellington in this connection, but, as His Honor pointed out, the comparison is not a fair one. In the first place, the Auckland judicial district/is very much larger than the Wellington district, while, it has also to be remembered that all the cases arising La the latter are not sent to Wellington for trial. In the second place, there is a much larger population here than in any other distict, and, in addition, a more cosmopolitan population, the local conditions attracting strangers from all quarters. These factors are apt to be lost sightof in instituting comparisons based on the mere number of cases set down in the criminal calendar. A knowledge of them, however, is necessary to see matters in their true light, and, taking them into account, it will be found that the percentage of crime in this district doe? not differ greatly from that obtaining in other parts of the Dominion.