A Pitiful Story From Thames.

Observer, Volume X, Issue 629, 17 January 1891, Page 3

A Pitiful Story From Thames.

Maby Ann (' Dolly ') Hiokey, a young woman, has been brought from Thames to serve a sentence of imprisonment, imposed upon her for savagely assaulting her old and bed-ridden mother. Miss Hickey almost deserves to be treated as a lunatic, and yet the balance of evidence favours the idea of sanity, though she seems possessed of seven devils of fiercer mood than those who were evicted from the Magdalene of old. Fancy a mother's ' Dolly ' — the pet child of her bosom— deseorating the grey hairs of the one who bore her by bruising and battering her till head and face were a mass of blood ; knocking and dragging her about, and trying to tear her tongue out by the root ! This is the work of a demon -not of a woman, and everyone is ready to ask tbe horrified question : How did Dolly Hickey become transformed from a gentle maiden into a fiend in female form ?

1 Drink did it !' Such is the cry of the teetotal crew. No doubt the wretched woman in Mount Eden Gaol was a victim of the drink habit, and only maltreated her mother when inflamed by some local publican's vile decoction ; but it is necessary to push the enquiry further and ask how she came to acquire the drink habit. In answering this question I shall have to disclose a most pitiful tale of man's perfidy, woman's weakness, and Society's awful culpability — a too common story, but one which in this case has speoially atrocious features. I am not fond of harrowing the feelings of my readers, and those who look for frivolity had better turn the page without more ado ; but the lessons of Dolly Hickey's life are so patent and withal so valuable that I should feel guilty if I did not point out the moral and expose the wrong-doing.

Ten years ago, Miss Hiekey was as lovely and beloved a young lady as resided at Thames— as modest and well-behaved as the dearest ohild of the best mother in Auckland. To-day, ' Dolly 'is a besotted and vicious woman, old before her time, savage beyond conception — a female Ishmael, an outcast, and an enemy of Society. What worked the change ? Who is responsible for the hellish wrong done to this girl, to her parents, and to the community ? There is a peiw)^ at the bottom of every wrong, and in this case the guilty one is now an honoured citizen of Auckland, who holds up his head with pride, and who affects to look down on honest men who have not his position. Let me briefly relate how his diabolical acts effected the ruin of Dolly Hiokey.

When 'Dolly' was fifteen years of age— a time of trusting innocence, mingled frequently with romantic ideas of man's nobility — she came under the accursed influence of a young man whose clear blue eyes and silvery tongue formed an effeotive disguise to the devilish nature within him. The fruit of their attachment was an illegitimate child. The mean, libidinous wretch who had ruined the girl attempted to evade the responsibility of paternity, and she had to drag him to Court and prove his guilt, when he was ordered to contribute to the maintenance of his offspring. His plain duty was to have married her and placed her in an honourable position before the world. Like the cowardly scoundrel that he is, he evaded this duty, and made an outcast of the one who had loved and trusted him.

His inhuman conduct sealed the fste of the poor girl, and he is responsible for every step in her downward career; she is to-day what he deliberately decreed for her when he cast her off Society is not free of blame. It is an accursed code which condemns a girl to life-long disgrace for the mistake of a moment ; it is as unchristian as it is cruel, and Mrs Gkundy and her accomplices have a terrible weight of responsibility for this poor girl's degradation, for which they are answerable in some degree. But the betrayer of a girl's innocence knows that his victim will be judged by this Christless code, and it becomes doubly his duty to stand between her and irretrievable shame. This heartless fellow knew to what he was condemning the girl he professed to love, but though he could have saved her by a word, he refused to speak it. No one can justify the conduct of the unfortunate woman now serving her penal sen-

tence, but who shall say that her betrayer and deserter is not a thousand times more criminal and despicable ? # # # Who is he ? Aa I have said, he walks Auckland streets with every sign of conscious rectitude ; he is a gentleman by Act of Parliament ; he has been so far trusted that he has Bince his first villainy ruined more than one pure girl ; he has married an honourable woman, and he is allowed to mix in business and society circles as though there was not a stain on his character. His name I should give were it not for the unsatisfactory state of the Law of Libel. But there are huiiuiods of people in Auckland who know his whole career of rascality, in business as in private life, and I hope they will duly warn their friends and acquaintances against such a dangerous character. #* # •

There are a few obvious lessons from this sad reoital. The firpt is that girls cannot be too early or too earnestly taught to resist the devil in the shape of profligate men. The second is that Society ought to revise its horrible code for dealing with cases of betrayed innocence. ' Dolly ' Hickey might have been a useful member of the community, despite her fall, had she been treated humanely and sympathetically. Women can do much to correct popular sentiment in this regard, and I am glad to note, as in the Annie Rauner case, that there are some women here who are not ashamed to lead the way to a healthier public opinioa.

The third lesson is that, for the welfare of Society, there should be more protection afforded to the Press in exposing private and public rascality. During the recent election contest, W. J. Napier was asked if he would support a law to protect those who publicly denounoed men who ruined girls. The candidate's reply v, as to the effeot that no further protection was needed. I fancy I know something of this subject, and I repeat that there is orying need for the newspaper Press being accorded wider privilege in stating facts bearing on the character of individuals, for the protection of Society. It suits lawyers to maintain the existing law of libel ; but I hope that very soon a healthier social tone will demand a more effective law to encourage those who do well and prove a terror to evil-doers. It may be too late to attempt tbe reformation of the poor ruined ' DoUy ' ; but it is not too late for vengeful wrath and retribution on the head of the monster who made her what she is.

Educational Institute.— The President's Ad* dress and the ' Star's ' LaudationThe eighth annual session of the New Zealand Educational Institute began its deliberations here on Tuesday, 6th inst., and after meeting daily, brought them to a close by a dinner on the evening of Friday,. 9th. Quite a number of topics were discussed, but in a desultory and often unsatisfactory manner, whioh of course could not well be otherwise, That the result of the proceedings will be of little value I am afraid cannot be doubted, as have been the results of former proceedings ; for out of the jargon of words, and the multiplicity of views, and topics cursorily treated, it is rather a difficult taßk to make, in the words of Sir Thomas More, ' either rhyme or reason.' Upon a few topics some comment may perhaps be justified, although I cannot of course devote so much of my over-crowded space to the purpose as did either the Star or theHerald.

The President, Mr E. M. C. Harrison, delivered an address, of course, which will naturally claim the first place in my criticism. The opening sentences in it, welcoming the delegates, and the concluding ones, winding up with a poetical quotation, were graceful and becoming ; but when I have said so much, I have said all that can complimentarily be said of the address ; and had he done only so much, while merely adverting to. the huge list of topics on the agenda, paper, hia address would be all that could fairly bo desired. # # * The body of the address recalled to my mind the well known lines — ' The Duke of York, with twenty thousand men, Rode up a hill and then rode down again j' {or every affirmative or positive statement carried with

it its negation, or denial, or cloak of palliation. The teachers, he said, were • hampered too mucn by Boards, parents, committees and Inspectors ' ; but. then it was for the teachers' good, it was local government in m<?, and he himself was an admirer, and lover, even, of local government. Again, the Inspectors should be remunerated adequately : but then •it was sometimes wise to hasten slowly,' as the local Education Board did lately, to wit, deferred consideration of the question of Inspectors' salaries for six months' time. Again, small schools, he said, were scattered too closely over the country ; but then the Board was thinking when building such schools that the population was then just about rapidly increasing, and since that thoughtful forecast did not come to pass, the multiplicity of small schools now remain, and like ugly monitors point to the extravagant way in which the Board has squandered the public money, and has brought the popular Education Act into so much disrepute and disfavour with the overburdened taxpayer. There is much more after a similar ' up-and-down 'or • yes-and-no ' style, and it is consequently not worthy of attention or notice.

Two topics, however, remain, to which some importance has been given from the laudation of them in a long leading article in the Star of 7th inst. The first one so lauded is the supposed refutation of the charge that the New Zealand system of primary education is ' godless.' Mr Harrison quoted an extract from an American writer concerning the American educational system, to the effect that that system was not godless, and therefore, Mr H. argued, the New Zeala'..-* education system is not godless. The Star applauds 4 that able refutation,' and goes off itself -into a longwinded dissertation about crime, to further • fortify ' the able refutation referred to. Now, my learned pundits, will you read the following words carefully, and with the aid of glasses if you are suffering from either short-sightedness or a temporary eclipse. Is not the New Zealand system of education ' secular ' ? Is not its being secular a fact, a very well known fact ? And what?*other synonymous word but ' godless ' can •or does express the same meaning ? Not a word in the English, or the French, or the Latin language, to do so better, can be found. If it were not purely • secular,' or 'godless,' the Education Act, 1877, would never have been enacted. The American • refutation,' then, quoted by Mr Harrison is no jetter than a hallucination, ' fortified ' be it ever so much.

The Star may be surprised to learn that many blank atheists, many infidels, many pagans, and many agnostics, have committed or do commie very few crimes ; but it does not follow, because of their Ereedom from crimes, that their atheism, infidelity, paganism, or agnosticism is not utterly ' godless.' Surely any degree, high or low, of criminality cannot prove that atheism is not godless ; nor can any degree, high or low, of criminality prove that a secular system of education is not secular or godless ; therefore, the long, learned, exhaustive, philosophic dissertation adverted to has of either logical proof or disproof, of any kind, like the empty cradle of the comic ditty, ' nothing in it.' Eeligious teaching and Bible reading are excluded from the primary school curriculum ; the system of education is, as it profeeses to be, ' purely secular ' or 1 godless,' and any pretended iefutation of the fact is impossible, absurd, and at the same time, ludicrous.

Concerning the second of the two topics adverted to, which was carefully italicised in the President's address, a half column of laudation in the Star begins in these words : — ' There is one sentence of the address to which we should like to call special attention It is this: -"The work of tlie teacher is the cultivation of faculty, the formation of character ." Too much stress cannot be laid on this point,' and so on. Gentle reader, kindly attend. Mr Harrison is a primary school teacher, and he was speaking to primary school teachers concerning the work of primary schools, and it is in that connection his words are to be taken. Now, then, is the work of primary school teachers the ' formation of character ;' or, to be brief and clear, education as opposed to instruction? I think not, and submit reasons for that opinion. The primary school pupils go to school with minds uninformed ; ' they know nothing,' as it is commonly said. At school they are told the names of the letters and the sounds of short combinations of letters; they are told the names of districts or countries; the parts of speech ; the meaning of noun, adjective, etc. ; the meaning of ' secular ' —pertaining to the physical, but not to the moral order of things; how to add, to subtract, to multiply, &c. Now, such is, and must be from the nature of the case, the chief portion of the work of the New Zealand primary schools. But that is not education, or the ' formation of character.' It is of course, as every reader, will admit, the communicating or imparting of secular information to the pupils, or what is termed instruction. The great wisdom, then, of the sentence that the work of the primary school teacher is the formation of character, shrinks into very attenuated proportions. .

The pupils in primary schools, I need hardly rcinark, are not prone to philosophise or to reflect — the faculties to do so being in a very immature or undeveloped stage ; bat they are ready and ripe enough to see, or to hear, or to learn through seeing if their teachers will take the trouble to help them. The formation of character is not limited to the few years of childhood; the whole span of life, of three score years and ten, at the least, . goes to form character ; in other words, instruction must be the chief, and education only a very secondary portion of the work in New Zealand primary schools. The contrary assertion is accordingly neither very reasonable nor very * profoundedly wise,' if Mr Harrison, or rather the Star will forgive me for saying so.