VICAR AND CHILD HOOLIGANS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23830, 9 June 1939, Page 6

VICAR AND CHILD HOOLIGANS

“ ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT ” PETTY THEFT WINKED AT VANDALISM AND DESECRATION (From Our Own Correspondent! LONDON, May 4. Complaints against child hooligans who use the church as a playground are made by the Rev. A. Leonard Poole, vicar of St. Matthew’s. Hammersmith, in his parish magazine. The vicar appeals to parents in the district to exercise more control over their children to prevent “ stupid hooliganism.”. Frequently windows of the church are broken in some cases deliberately, he states. “ Notices are torn down and sacrilege is committed in church by children and adults. “ There was a time,” says Mr Poole, “ when a church was at least regarded as sacred by the worst type of criminal, but nowadays it seems that a building which is kept open all day for Masses and private devotion is looked on as fair play for vandalism and desecration.” The vicar says he has no intention of locking St. Matthew’s at present, but the Church Council will in future be compelled to take some action against the parents of children who use the church as a playground or who damage church property in any way “ ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT ” The modern child, the vicar suggests, has made an eleventh commandment. It is: “ Thou shalt not be found out." He writes: “ The present conception ot theft among children is astonishing When I caught some boys aged between six and 13 stealing property from the hall they were not the least bit embarrassed at being discovered in the act of thieving, but what concerned them most was the fact that they could not keep what they had stolen and one actuallv wept because of this ‘ When petty theft and traud is winked at in the home we cannot expect a high standard of honesty among children On one occasion a parent was most annoyed with me because I had discovered his boy stealing, and the parent gave me what he described as a good dressing down-’’