YOUTHS' BAD LANGUAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18272, 13 December 1922, Page 7

YOUTHS' BAD LANGUAGE.

OFFENCE ON FERRY WHARF.

MAGISTRATE'S STRONG COMMENT.

Two youths, Frank Ashman and Brian McKerma (Mr. Dickson), appeared before Mr. J. E. Wilson, S.M., in the Police Court yesterday on charges of being disorderly while drunk and of having used obscene language in a public place, Birkenhead Wharf. The evidence snowed that accused were under tKe influence of liquor on the ferry steamer Albatross, and used obscene language on tho steamer and at the Birkenhead Wharf. Counsel for the defence said he would raise a technical point, that the Birkenhead Wharf was not a public place, but the magistrate said he was satisfied the wharf was a public place. Counsel said the boys, one of whom wag 16 and the other 17, were not vised to strong liquor, and they thus found themselves in their present unfortunate position. They could not remember anything of the affair. Mr. Wilson: The language is quite the worst I have- had to consider for a long time, it is absolutely filth. I don't know what their minds must be like, they must be cesspools. They should never have been able to obtain the liquor—that is one of the shocking parts about it. For disorderly behaviour, each accused was fined £3, in default 14 days' imprisonment. A conviction wa3 recorded on the other charge. "If the accused bad been older men," said the magistrate, "I would have sent them to prison. They will be put on nrobation for two years, one condition being that they absolutely abstain from the use of alcoholic liquor during that period. They will get a chance this time."