COLONIAL CRIMINALS.

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 17

COLONIAL CRIMINALS.

CPIRISTCHURCH, February 13. In sentencing a young man at the Supreme Court to-day for damaging the Ferriss wheel, Judge Edwards expressed sorrow that the man was a. native of the colony. Continuing, he believed that some ingenious gentleman, not ■wholly unconnected with the Press, had published articles dealing with the records of this colony as compared with those of the Old Country. His Honor, however, did not know that the writer had shown chat there was a difference in the conditions of life. In this colony a person who Was honestly inclined nnd who displayed an ordinary amount of industry was not under the slightest temptation to become a criminal. In countries like England, and especially in a great metropolis like London, people were bom into criminality and were bred 1 in it; they had no resources but criminal ones. Persons who were born in New Zealand came from parents who had had sufficient enterprise to come out to the colony, where they made homes and led respectable lives. Natives of New Zealand also had all the advantages of a healthy up-bringing and a magnificent climate. If under such circumstances large numbers of them became criminals, as he had said before, and as he said again, it was a. lamentable fact, and was an evil for which philanthropists might wfell seek a cure.