Night Life in Towns.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5283, 14 June 1895, Page 4

Night Life in Towns.

Aa the moth is attracted by the candle, so it seems are children drawn by the lights of a city after dark! In some countries legislation has been passed with the view of compelling the withdrawal of the young from the streets of towns after a certain hour in the evening, bat we have no very definite information as to the effect of this "curfew" method. A more rational remedy is propounded by Mibb Dendy, in a book entitled " Aspects of the Social Problem," by various authors, which has recently been published in London. Here are her graphic words describing the cause and proposed cure of the tendency of youth to

rove the streets at night :—

To ohildren of fourteen and fifteen the streets have a perilous fascination in the evenincr. The glare of the gas-lamps, the busy thronging to and fro, the wild, free intercourse among acquaintances and Btrangers alike, are irresistible attractions to these excitable young creatures after the monotony of the day. - I have seen a letter from a girl of this age describing the delights of the street dance and the meeting of friends, which, though perfectly simple in expression, was almost passionate in its intensity of feeling, and made me realise more than many failures the impossibility of getting these young girls out of London or into a quiet domestic life. If they are plain, or awkward, or low-Bpirited, or in any way unable to hold their own ,iv the boisterous merrymaking, you may succeed ; or if you can get hold of them before they have fairly broken away from the restraints of school. But not unless. There is a passion for excitement in all of us which tsuat be satisfied when once it has got , the upper hand, and what do we offer these children for the pleasures which we ask them to relinquish P Safety and restraint; and for the one they cannot realise the need, while the other they have learned to hate. We shall never eucceed until we can provide some safety-valve through which they can expend the emotional energy which poßßeeses them. I suppose many of us find this safety-valve ourselves in literature, and it is astonishing that so little haß been done to place good literature within the reach of the poorest classes.

In our colonial cities there can be no doubt that great harm results from the habit of young persons of bo' h sexes being allowed to roam the streets unrestrainedly after dark. Accepting as correct Miss Dendy's theory that in the gas-lit streets there are "irresistible attractions" for young people, the proper course would seem to be to meet the craving for excite* ment by providing some safer and healthier means of gratifying it. Cheap literature is plentiful in England, as it is here, and some of it cannot be blamed for its lack of exciting elements; but the want is not means to get books or power to read them, but the taste or passion for reading or Btudy. The desire for unhealthy excitement is a social disease, the " microbe " of which is as yet undiscovered. It is well, however, to approach the consideration of the subjeot in the tolerant and dispassionate spirit shown by Miss Dendy ; for by so doing we shall be more likely to accomplish the reformation of the "larrikin" element than if we simply assumed the existence of vioioua inclinations which require repressing.