The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1935. ADVICE FOR THE ASKING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20632, 5 June 1935, Page 8

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1935. ADVICE FOR THE ASKING.

ARIATIONS in the control of ’ children’s courts in conformity with the English practice are mentioned by the Minister of Justice. Reform is certainly needed. There is one man in England to-day who would be able to give the Dominion priceless advice on this subject, from his experience as a past Minister of Justice and an eminent criminal lawyer. Sir Thomas Wilford, K.C., knew the weaknesses of the New Zealand system, particularly as they threaten the liberty of the subject, but his efforts at reform were interrupted by his transfer to another field. Reform is hardly needed so far as the protection of the juvenile offender is concerned, and what is more urgent at the moment is the greater protection of the community against the juvenile offender who has it fixed in his mind that the way of the transgressor is not hard. To this end preventive and reformative work should proceed on the most modern lines. After that, the proteclipn of adults charged with offences against juveniles should be a little more fully safeguarded by the admission to juvenile courts, as a right, of accredited representatives of newspapers. British law hitherto has conceded the right of the public to be represented in all courts in which the liberty of the subject is threatened, and the accepted representatives of the public are Press representatives, even though the court, rightly, may have power to impose a censorship upon the matter that appears in print. AN APPEAL TO MAMMON. IF THE CITY COUNCIL has a hump of acquisitiveness, it should prick up its ears at the intelligence that after all it only receives £lB4 a year from the licensing of hoardings. This, on the lowest plane, is a wretched inducement upon which to condone the aesthetic offence of placarding the city. An even worse thing is done for the sake of a few paltry pounds in the stationing of penny-in-the-slot weighing machines right in the heart of city beauty spots, and the Domains Board as well as the City Council is a miserable offender in this respect. DOGS AND CHILDREN. THE MOST HUMAN if not divine quality in dogs is their kind indulgence towards children, in whom they instinctively recognise a mixture of helplessness and ignorance. The Alsatian is a disgrace to the dog family, for the wolf strain in him has extinguished that spark of human understanding that makes the dog the protector of children. The latest attack of an Alsatian on a friendly little infant of three years of age has only one redeeming feature, that the owner destroyed the dog, as other owners would be well advised to do as an insurance against claims for damages. THE UNBROKEN SET. PROBABLY Mr Henry, the outspoken Prime Minister of Ontario, considers that he knows as well as any other man how many beans make five in the matter of the Dionne quintuplets. But when he recommended the 0.8. E. for Dr Dafoe he fell short of the honour due to the hero of the piece. Indeed, Dr Dafoe’s deserts excised that of famous archaeologists who now bear knighthoods, for he has brought to light a great treasure such as the tombs of kings cannot contain, and, what is more, kept it as an unbroken set. In the preservation of the five lies great potential value to medical science—already psychologists are discussing the possibility of a curious mental affinity between them—and in the retention of the set, too, lies the whole secret of their publicity value. As quadruplets or triplets they would become just a memory. In such an unhappy event if the mother, emulating the Mother of the Gracchi, were to produce her daughters, saying, “These are my jewels,” she would speak far more figuratively than she at present anticipates.