VANDALISM AND ITS CURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 6

VANDALISM AND ITS CURE.

There will be.general sympathy with the Hawera railway officials and public in the spoliation of the gardens at the railway station by vandals. It is a difficulty that local authorities throughout the Dominion have to contend with, and even private landowners who have endeavoured to share the beauties of their properties with the public have found their generosity ill requited. Not only have there been actual thefts of plants and bushes, but damage in other directions has been inflicted, apparently out of sheer desire to spoil public or private property. At the larger centres complaints of thefts from the parks and reserves have been frequent of late. It is possible that the sale of the stolen plants by those who are in need may prompt such actions at times. But in Taranaki the depredations are of such a nature as to preclude any such reason for theft. In the public reserves where native bush is growing the vandal removes ferns and young trees without the slightest reference to their suitability for transplanting or to the season when they should be removed. In private gardens the mischief has been even more inexplicable. Plants have been pulled up and left to wither near the place they were removed from, and in some cases thrown into other portions of a garden with the evident desire of spoiling their appearance as well. Nor is the vandalism confined to children. It is true that a good deal more control of children in public parks would be appreciated by those in authority, but the spoliation most complained of is often the work of adults and adolescents. The only satisfactory corrective to this unhappy tendency is a healthy public qpinion that will make any citizen feel it his duty to prevent vandalism whenever and wherever he sees it practised. If a mischief-maker knew that his actions and identity would be revealed to authority by any member of the public it would be an effective deterrent to mischievousness, and the punishment that would follow detection would have further influence in that direction. If all the young people’s organisations would make the prevention of vandalism one of their functions much good would follow, for unless the tendency is checked the freedom of the public to enjoy public and private beauty spots is likely to be curtailed severely.