CRIME IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14219, 16 November 1909, Page 6

CRIME IN AUCKLAND.

NOT SO BLACK AS PAINTED.

A WIDE AND POPULOUS DISTRICT.

In charging the grand jury at the opening of the criminal sessions of the Auckland Supreme Court yesterday, the presiding judge, His Honor Mr. Justice Cooper, said there were some 36 cases on the list, a number of them involving serious offences. Although he had not presided over the criminal sittings in the Auckland district before, it was only fair to point out , that although the number of cases set down was generally very large, they were not proportionately very much larger than in other parts of the Dominion, as the Northern Judicial District was very extensive, all serious cases occurring between the North Cape and Taumarunui being investigated in Auckland. At Wellington the number of persons presented for trial at each quarterly sittings was less than in Auckland, and comment was very often made about the greater prevalence of crime here. In justice to Auckland, however, it should be remembered that in the Wellington Judicial District criminal sittings were held at Palmerston North, Wanganui, and Napier every four months, and that cases which would otherwise have gone for trial at Wellington were heard at these places. Consequently the number of cases tried at Auckland as compared with Wellington was not so much greater as at first appeared. Next year two sittings would be held at Hamilton, which would no doubt reduce the number of cases .to be heard in the city of Auckland. There were other circumstances which might explain why there was a somewhat greater degree of crime in this district. One was that there was a larger population here than in any other district, and another was that a large number of strangers, very often of an indifferent character, found it convenient to land here from Sydney and America. Then there was the circumstance that the community was exceedingly mixed, and that it attracted strangers. On the whole he thought that when the various circumstances were taken into consideration the percentage of-crime here was not very much greater than in other parts of the Dominion.