LES APACHES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 4 September 1908, Page 2

LES APACHES.

I read in the cablegrams that tho I police of Paris have made a descent on I tho haunts of the Apaches, larrikins of iarisian breed; and I bear in the oars now shocked everybody is to learn (from the newspapers) what wicked parsons these Apaches are. True; and' ] have, no doubt that the contemplation cf the wickedness of the. Apaches from this distance, gives to placid souls a not uncomfortable thrill. I merely desire to point out now that the Sydney-larri-kin is every bit as bad and dangerous a brute as the Paris Apacho, and thacwo in the cities of New Zealand are already beginning to breed larrikins of the Sydney sort. The other Saturday night in: .Wellington I counted fifty young fellows very drunk as I walked home. Walk of less than a mile; tim.> fifteen minutes; all of the young fellows apparently under twenty. Also, I assert that the young fellows of Wellington, drunk or sober, have a tendency to disorder that is ominous. A few weeks ago in Manners Street, a mob of them rushed-a policeman who was arresting a young ruffian. The work of tho police here is never easy. We need, in short, to take sedulous care that do not permit any reproduction of tho conditions that have produced the Apache in Paris. The Apaohe has sprung from that contempt of authority that springs like an ill-weed under any venal; and defective police synbem. The police of Paris have long bf<m ill-; paid and iil-es-teercod. Our oav=i ritiica aro ill-paid. To remain lionest in the police, a "man must bo honest by natui'o. We pay ihes.> men wages on which it is virtually linpcssib' that men can supoort fair.li.\, vitii ioa<;onabl© hboialrt" Furr> or m ■'he Police Department thero is no it 0 < \- tion thofc piomotion go->s l,y iperit. Well, if m these cucumst.iri" is po'i-e officers are at any tinj© tcmpTod 1o take biibes or hush ponov.'! "'lepit)i> the; fact, -but I cannot too harsnl 7 dondoirm* tho mm,, 'Ih^ hi.sk.ctsentnl tf.a^sound ispwhee systemjs-th?t the .uius'jshAlsl bomcoiiuptible and unconupi-o/jj ,an?d. J''a: ■ man ( condemneJ to psnurv is^fil^qirl?)-' 1 ppd to withstand t-nnptai 10 i. Oui -un-dor-payment of the police ■* i <candal. ' Oui nnder-payment of school toa^icis I is even a gravei scandal. "~1 f we don'u want Apaches in tho futuie, we must provide the best education possible lor the childien—education a:, rlie hajids of men and women of true cil'mo and refinement,, men aud women II), i ally paid for their lesponsible and wearing work. Childreu must be taught not merely to get knowledge, but to love it. They must'bo taught the traa pi ©portions and relations of physical and-men-tal culture. In the majority of cases now—at least as % regards the class-cs from which ■-■larrikins most natiirally spring—mental culture cease.s mwn school days end. Our youns; men of the working class do not read. They are profoundly ignorant .of even their own literature. As to the literature of tho world—well, they know nothing at all about ifc. Just a few mpiith.3- ago I wrote for an Australian maga7ir,e ;i ballad of Bookfellcws. Sitting among my books 1l took haphazard the names of writers that happened to fall easily into the lilt. I named no man whose work w ras not represented in my little library, and I named nono that had not some title to fame. But, to my consternation I found that, even among' tho young men who do read a little, I was accused of I know not what— putting on fide, I think you call it. Most deplorable.