JUVENILE DEPRAVITY.

NZ Truth, Issue 107, 6 July 1907, Page 3

JUVENILE DEPRAVITY.

A SHOCKING CASE AT HASTINGS.

A Mother's Appeal for Her Boy.

Some .year? ago there was c6tt« siderable sensation throughout New. Zealand by, the discovery of the existence of wholesale immorality; amongst the pupils attending the State schools. The agitation then started had a 1 salutory effect, and this no doubt greatly minimised, if ■ it did not wholly eradicate the juvenile debauchery • that, was being practised. The alarming increase m sexual offences m late years, however, gives rise to the supposition that the children attending bur schools are not the sanctified innocents their parents think they are, . and that the educational centres' have become, as m past years, the breeding ground for future indul-. gence. The inuxoiber of oompafativedyi . young people who figure 'm the criminal courts under various aspects of sexual crime gives colour to this supposition. Take the case of the four Hastings youths sentenced at Napier Supreme Court the other day for having carnal knowledge of a girl under sixteen. The ages of the lads ranged from fifteen to nineteen years and the crimes were under the most revolting circumstances. His Honor regretted that he cquld not, m justice to the general public, admit the boys to probation, and sentenced them to\k hard, labor for various terms. That is. to say 1 they will (with one exception) herd with hardened criminals, who will teach ,them what they do- not already know. As ouf industrial schools are incubators of the future criminal; probably His Honor was tight,- after all, for. the term of contact -with other law-breakers will be shorter m the gaol. 'As truly, observed by His Honor, these youngsters would probably not have 'been convicted 'of such an offence had they not been OF A VICIOUS DISPOSITION, and this bears ' out the assertion that this vicious disposition was /acquired m our schools, or if it was inherited (which is improbable) it was not corrected m: the school, but found a congenial atmosphere there. The , prieelddng Judge said- he must 'punish the youthful crdmi'nals, for two reasons : First, because they deserved it, and secondly because it m the interests of the community that they should be punished. Robinson, who was ' now nineteen years of age, would be sent to two years' imprisonment ; with hard labor. Allison, who would be seventeen years of age m December next, and who might have been led into the trouble by the elder prisoner, would receive 18 months' imprisonment. Kluver, who was still younger, would receive 12 months' hard labor, and the boy, Earl Roberts, who was under 16 yiears of age, three months' with hard labor. v A singularly affecting scene followed this last sentence. The sobbing voice of a woman arose from the. body of the Court. It was .probably the boy's mother. "Give -him a chanoe, Judge ; he is only 15,'? she said. His Honor, pfraar.kad Jbhat, in _cobsiidfcration 6i the extreme youth of Roberts Jie would be kept apartfroin the prisoners as much as possible. IT WAS ffi PAINFUL DUTY sentencing young men, hut it was one he owed -to'- .the community, and he could not help it.". "Have a little pity, Judge," wailed the unfortunate mother: "Remove the prisoners" said His Honor, sternly. Then a teart-broken:' woman was led from the Court m a state of collapse. It was a painful scene, and impressed the many beholders. Piob^ ably had the parents of these, youths exercised better control of their offspring they would not have seen them m a felon's dock. By a strange coincidence, Magistrate Riddell remarked the other day m Wellington upon the absence of eaxly parental control, as shown m the case of the Cambridge Terrace' gang of hoodlums. Singularly enough, too, a girl figured largely m this case, where she did not bob. up occasionally, as $'tart" or "myi bit of skirt."