VAGABOND MENACE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23057, 7 June 1938, Page 15

VAGABOND MENACE

CONCERN OF FARMERS MEN SENT FROM CITIES PRACTICE OF MAGISTRATES [bv telegraph—own correspondent] CHRISTCHURCH. Monday Farmers object to a practice magistrates are said to have of sending rogues, vagabonds and generally undesirable characters into the country. The North Canterbury provincial conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union decided to protest to the Minister of Justice, the Hon. H. G. R. Mason, against this "dumping of vagabonds into country places." Speaking for the Hororata branch, sponsor of the protest, Mr. K. W. J. Hall quoted from a newspaper report of June, 1937. He read a Magistrate's Court report, which stated that two men came before the Court charged with being rogues and vagabonds in that they had no lawful visible means of support and had both been convicted previously of being idle and disorderly. |

The sub-inspector of police had told the magistrate that these men were before the Court a fortnight earlier, when it was made a condition that they should go into the country. There had been no sign of them since about town. The magistrate convicted and discharged the accused. Mr. Hall said that when farmers were out at work their wives were often left at home with young children. It was wrong that the police, who were there to protect the people, should send rogues and vagabonds into the country. If these men could not find a living they should be looked after in the city. That was presumably what unemployment taxes were paid for. Instead, here wero men being sent out into the country, becoming a nuisance and a danger to country people. Farming people did not mind feeding a man looking for work, but they did object to having rogues and vagabonds thrust upon them. Only last year, at Arundel, a storekeeper was murdered by a man of this type, added Mr. Hall. Six or seven years ago a person at Lake Coleridge was shot by a man like this. Farmers should protest against the practice of making the country a dumping ground for vagabonds. The icoposal was carried unanimously.