THE Otago Daily Times. " Inveniam viam aut faciam."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 849, 10 September 1864, Page 4

THE Otago Da ily Times. " Inveniam viam aut faciam."

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.

The Criminal Sessions are over. The guilty have received the sentences due to tbeir offences, the innocent have been acquitted, and tbe Jury discharged. Notwithstanding tbe forcible address ofthe Judge to the Grand Jury, it seems likely that, as no startling crime left its imprint; upoh the social memory, the recollection of all the transactions has well nigh passed away already. But it is not thus thatthe existence of crime should be allowed to become ignored, lor however trivial the offences, there was one circumstance which gave the criminal list of last Session peculiar significance. Most of those convicted of larceny were young—their ages varying from sixteen to six or seven and twenty. Had the majority of the offences been committed by persons hardened in vice, and who had been attracted hither by the prospect of plundering some who had gathered ricbes in this goldproducing country, though most probably the offences would have been of a more daring and perhaps cruel character, the offenders themselves would have been aliens—a something not belonging to us— a foreign production—the pestiferous offshoots of another land. But when the crimes are petty, and are perpetrated by mere boys, tbey indicate an indigenous growth, and tell us there are evils growing up in our very midst, that lay upon us deep responsibilities to inquire into, to ameliorate, aud, if possible, to eradicate. It is perhaps too common to imagine that those wbo are convicted are nearly tbe only offenders against the law and against society ; but so far from tbis being the case, tbe number of those against whom crimes are proved, compared with those who escape defection or at least conviction, is really small. His Honor Mr Justice Chapman, expressed a hope that in these colonies there did not exist a dangerous class, such as is to be found in older countries—we trust there does not, in the same proportion, of native growth—but yet there is the germ to say the least; and sipart from the moral aspect of the question, the very existence of such a class is, in a high degree, detrimental to the prosperity of the country. Professor Hearn in his "Theory ofthe Efforts to Satisfy Human Wants," affirms that one cause tending to national poverty is the existence of a criminal class. After enumerating a variety of agencies by which poverty may be induced—natural agents, war, ignorance, slavery, he observes— " But deplorable as is the waste of natural " agents, it is insignificant in every sense "when it is compared with the I " waste of man. There are great classes "of persons, whose efforts for the " satisfaction of their wants are constant " indeed, and energetic, but are made at " the expense, or in furtherance of the " vices, of other men." . . "According 'to recent judicial statistics, it appears " that in England and Wales an army of

" 135,000 people is known to be main- " tamed by the plunder or the vices of " of their fellow-citizens, HWng sometimes "in proflgate extravagance, at other " times in the deepest want, at " all times and every where in " the deepest moral degradation, '• It is estimated, and the calculation is '• probably beneath the truth that the " annual cost to the community of this " criminal population, whether it bemain- " tamed in prison, or by tbe exercise oi its " ordinary pursuits cannot be less than ten " millions sterling." The proportion of criminals to the population, according to this estimate, is about 1-35 to 190 in England and Wales. But, notwithstanding the greater earnings of tbe working classes in tbe Southern Hemisphere, and the consequent freedom from the temptations of poverty, there is reason to believe that the Criminal class, or rather, tbe suspected class, bears a much larger proportion to the population tban at Home. About two years ago, an inquiry was instituted in Victoria respecting the Police arrangements of that Colony; and in the course of the evidence, a statement was made by one of the police force that the criminal and suspected classes in Melbourne numbered upwards of four thousand, or in round numbers, about one in thirty of the population of that City. The investigations which have been made of late years into this branch of social science lead to the conclusion, that while numbers annually fall into this class from the effects of drunkenness and vicious indulgence, the source from wbich it is principally perpetuated and recruited, is from the descendants of the class—the children of thieves and prostitutes.

Dr Hearn assumes that to a certain extent the evil is preventible. That " improved prison discipline and careful supervision" may restore many of the outcasts to society, and that the neglect of the State to make suitable provision for orphaned and destitute children is a national sin. If this be true, and it seems an undeniable maxim, one of the first duties of the Provincial Council is to take measures for the better classification of persons in the gaol. The Departmental report of the Governor of the Gaol presented tothe Council at its last sitting, proved the utter inadequacy of the present prison arrangements for reformatory, or even graduated penal purposes; and, although it may be freely admitted that the cost of prisons is a Colonial and not a Provincial question, it is the bounden duty of the Council to take such steps as shall, as far as possible, lead to check the moral pestilence of an incipient criminal class, and to make such arrangements as will not deter a Judge from inflicting punishment on a young offender, lest association with hardened criminals, should render the attempt at cure, a means of intensifying the disease.