NATURE AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 54, 6 March 1939, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

NUISANCE OF THE ABNORMAL NEED OF HARD HAND FOR VANDALS

by Leo Fanning). What an exasperating nuisance stupid 1 vandals can be to a community! The owners of a beautiful piece of bush in the Mauriceville West had allowed people to enter the peaceful woodland, but vandals have caused the exclusion of all pleasure-seekers, unless they have permission to enter the forest. Despite warnings, careless persons persisted in lighting dangerous tires, and thus a privilege was withdrawn from the public. The criminal lolly of careless use of < fire in or near a forest is a reminder of the easy opportunities which cunning malefactors may have to make themselves a very grievous nuisance to the community. The peace and safety of civilised society depend on the assumption that the average person will not become abnormal. In New Zealand there is an average of about one policeman per thousand of po; lion. In other words, it is assumed that the average person will not require more than one-thousandth part of a policeman to keep him in a law-abiding habit. But, if an indixid- 1 ual suddenly becomes diabolically nonaverage, he may find work foi a thousand policeman. Some of the •‘master criminals” or •'international crooks” of the Old World and America certainly keep plenty of police very busy. . . xHow many police would New Zealand need if in every town and village a number of average persons decided to be extremely unaverage in all manner of very unpleasant and very cunning ways? How would the old cost of living go on for the minority who failed to get jobs as policemen? Another nuisance of abnormality was suffered by Christchurch many years ago when the “horse-fiend roamed about by night with a deadly blade. I forget now whether the cruel brute was ever caught, but I do remember that the eccentricity of one individual worried the whole public. Perhaps the most impressive proof of the power of mischief workable by average persons, when they run amok, was given by the suffrattes in England long ago. When they had a few tights in the streets with police or politicians, the public was more amused than indignant, but when they began burning historic buildings, especially a church which dated back to Norman times, it it was another story. Many of those were done so craftily that the culprits were not detected. There were not nearly enough police to keep track of all the women who had resolved to try to frighten Parliament. A few centuries ago, before the establishment of police forces, the Government and the public in nearly every country of the Old World, too»x very drastic measures to discourage abnormality. A man who made himself a nuisance to the community had a ride in a very uncomfortable cart to a little platform for his last public ap-

pearance, or he had Lo step to a block where he quickly lost his head. If the Government failed to hunt down the abnormal person he might find death, unofficially, at the hands of folk who disliked him. Few persons to-day would like to see that treatment in vogue again for the checking of abnormality, because the advocates of that short-cutting policy might run a risk of finding themselves victims of their own advice. There is so much stress of work or play these days that the average person knows •not the day nor the hour when a I tendency to be abnormal may turn him from the straight rut of his daily life into a riot of wildness. Essays and stories have been written about a latent instinct or itch in many an average person to break out into lawlessness. In the eyes of the average man or woman a great criminal may have a glamour. If he is caught he draws a “full house” at his trial. But these criminals are not abnormal in the sense that vandals are abnormal. They are true to type; they follow a certain course; they can be fitted into percentages of the population and tables of statistics. The Duty of Conservation Dire need is compelling Federal and State legislatures of America to take effective action i»n conservation cf natural resources, which have been alarmingly reduced by the mismanagement of several centuries. Unfortunately, it is not very easy to induce an average inhabitant of a town or village lo give much heed to conservation except when a big flood or forest fire has stirred up the sluggishness. “It is generally conceded that we can go only as far in this business of conserving our resources as public opinion will permit,” writes Wilda Grim Quimby in “Conservation” (published by the American Forestry Association). “We have seen time and time again that we cannot give people a desire to do a thing simply by pass--1 ing legislation which compels them to Ido it. If a genuine desire to conserve our resources is not present in the minds of our peoo'le we are doomed to failure from the start. It is human nature to be indifferent to situations which we do not understand. Our job, then, is to see to it that everyone is informed of the true need for conserving our resources. Our aim should be to build up within the minds of our people a desire to protect these resources.” In New Zealand that mysterious force known as “public opinion” has already been created in favour of a strong conservation of natural resources. Even if “public opinion” continued to be laggard in this field, it would still be the duty of the Government to go ahead. It is often better to lead the public than wait to be led by the public.