THE APPLE STEALING CASE. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 5938, 19 February 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE APPLE STEALING CASE. TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—wm you kindly afford space for the following letter, the publication of which has been declined by your evening contemporary.

Editor Evening Star.

Sm,—l think I can show, substantial grounds for asserting,,if you will allow me to do so, that an entire misapprehension of the facts led to the production of the article published by you last evening on therecent apple-stealing case, and that you have seriously misinterpreted public sentiment on the matter. Five boj'S were charged with the offence; three of them pleaded guiltjy and these three were identified as having been seen in the garden. The other two pleaded not guilty, and there was no evidence to show that they were guilty. All that was proved against the three boys was a trespass, for the prosecutor could not say " that a shilling's worth of fruit had been taken," and did not say that one penny's worth had. Though it is a technical objection, and from a common-sense point of view of no consequence, still, as the conduct of the Magistrate is to some extent under review, it may be worth mentioning that the charge that was laid was not sustained, and that the information was not amended, though entirely at variance with the evidence.

You say "boys, like eels, are difficult to catch." Doubtless those who commit the serious depredations you speak of are, but in this case a boy was caught by a feeble old man from whom a child of nine could have escaped; while, had the defendants been larrikins, it would have been the prosecutor who would have been fortunate in escaping from them. A rather important fact is that the boys from the first told the truth. The one who was taken gave his own name and address and the namos of the others truthfully. When appealed to,- one of. the boys told the Bench that the two who had pleaded y not guilty had not entered the garden; and that such was the case was apparent from tha fact that three, not five, boys were seen in the garden. One singular matter lias been entirely over-looked. You say Sir Watt has been unreasonably b'ained. Will.you kindly express an opinion whether it was reasonable to convict two boys against whom there was only the presumption that at some time they might have stolen, or would steal apples, and to acquit one who had pleaded guilty to the charge, giving him, as the magistrate sapiently remarked, " the beneßt of the doubt."

The punishment, in comparison with the crime, may not have been severe ; but I have seen scores of boys punished for the same offence, and never before heard a sentence of such a degrading character passed upon boys for a similar tvet. It is the stigma that rests upon the boys for such a term that makes the punishment severe—the fact that the parents can only have possession of their children as a priyilege that renders it cruel. I admit that Mr Titchener is a kind-hearted, sensible man ; but the parents of the children may not know this, and consequently can receive little comfort from it. As to public sentiment, it is absurd to'suppose that it is in favour of protecting crinio; it is in favour of supressing it by the most effective—which are seldom the most severe—measures, and I think also that the general opinion is that the mal-administration of justice is something which calls for as stern repression even as apple-stealing.—l am, &c, ■-."■; PORITAK. February 16th. :