West Coast Times. AND WESTLAND OBSERVER. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1869.

West Coast Times, Issue 1321, 16 December 1869, Page 2

West Coast Times. AND WESTLAND OBSERVER. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1869.

In yesterday's issue we gave a rather long report of an interview that the Chairman of the Education Board, the Mayor, Archdeacon Harper, the Rev. J. Gow, the Hon. J. A. Bonar, and other influential gentlemen of the town, who are deeply interested, had with the Chairman of the County in reference to the non-payment of moneys voted by the County Council in the cause of education. Without doubt the Ceunty funds, what with embezzlement, miscalculations of income, superabundant officers in the shape of Receivers, expensive legislators, &c, have been sadly pulled about, and education has had to suffer veiy seriously in consequence. The state of affairs, however, in reference to this subject would have been hardly understood, and certainly not believed, had there not been such undoubted testimony on the subject. It seems that though money was voted by the Council, nothing has been paid during the present half-year. It is not a matter of red tape delay of a month or two, but in fourteen days more the year expires, and, if we are rightly informed, the vote lapses unless renewed by the County Council. If such is the fact, in case of the Chairman neglecting* to keep the partial promise he made as to handing- over £500 by the 22nd instant, the School Committees are deprived of half a year's income, and the rising generation are scattered about in all directions. The effect of the defalcations — for really they are nothing less — on the part of the County has been that several schools have been necessarily abandoned by teachers who could not live on County promises, and some of them have been so disorganised as to be virtually deserted. This, too, be it remembered, in the face of a distincl vote of a body who are facetiously supposed to rule in Westland. Education-, we may say, has ceased, and even if the committee do get a paltry sum on the 22nd of December, that should have been paid nearly six months ago, the disgrace will be by no means wiped out. We, however, cannot add anything to what the gentlemen we have referred to said, and if residents in the country do not feel heartily ashamed of the disclosures then made thoy are more pachydermatous than we have hitherto given them credit for. In January next, when the County Council meets, we have every hope that the subject will be taken up, and dealt with as it deserves. On whom tbo blame rests cau then be discovered, aud on the right shoulders we truel it will be fixed. Further comment at present would be alike unprofitable and useless, but we are much mistaken if at least eomo members of the Council allow their deliberate votes to be as deliberately overridden, and themselves made a byeword and a reproach. The sneer that the members of the Couuty Council are uot favorable to educational develop, meut Is, we thoroughly wula.

consideration hitherto displayed will have to be fully, and let us hope satisfactorily explained. Letting that phase of the question drop, however, there is another that is well worthy of the most serious consideration on the part of those who take any interest in the children that are growing up around us. It was foreshadowed in the remarks made at the interview above referred to, and wo do not in the least degree claim the idea as original. There are in this town, as has been pointed out by more than one correspondent, aud has been confirmed on the evidence of ministers of religion, scores of if not homeless boys, at least boys whose parents are iudifferent to them, or leading dissolute and' degraded lives themselves. These city Arabs, as they have been elsewhere termed, even if anxious to acquire some education, are debarred from attending the Denominational schools, either through disinclination on the part of their parents or through poverty, which prevents them from being able to dress in such a mauner as to render them acceptable there. We have not space at. , present to go inlo this subject fully^ but if a quarter of the tales that are told of these outcast children are true, it is disgraceful to the community that such scenes as are described should exist in a Christian-la mi. Premature vice and obscenity of every description are reported as common, and those who tell the stories have been eye-witnesses to scenes that are so abominable as not to bear description. Such children require special provision if, as was very truly said, we are not anxious to _ fill our gaols and replenish the criminal ranks from the abandoned, or at least neglected, children of Westland. At another time we shall be prepared with some facts that will astonish many of those in Hokitika, who like the Pharisees of old, " thank God that they are not as many men are.'' Education has been neglected by the County Government in every respect ; wretched children swarm about the town. Westland is sowing the wind, and in a few years will reap the whirlwind through this cause. 5