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White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 311, 18 May 1921, Page 1

Tlit- W.C.T.L. Convention sent a very hearty message of congratulation to Mr A. S. Adapts upon hi* appointment to the Bench of supreme Court Judge*. Mr Adams has hern the trusted leader of the Temperance Party for over a

quarter of a century. He is a man of deep religious convictions, a deacon in the Baptist Church. When Convention met last time in Dunedin City, the minister of Hanover Street Baptist Church asked for a delegate to sup

ply his pulpit on the Sunday morning. Mrs Cole, then Dominion President, requested the present Editor of this journal to supply this pulpit. The Editor, then an almost untried speaker, went in fear and trembling, assured by our

loved President that she had only to take the address, Mr A. S. Adams would take the preliminaries. Upon arrival there she was met by two deacons, Mr Adams and Mr McLaren, conducted to the Minister’s Vestry, where the three knelt down und prayed for God's blessing upon the service. As ihe voice of the deacons rose in supplication to God. the woman preacher forgot that : he had dreaded the task of speaking befoio the cool, critical lawyer, and remembered only that they were one in their devotion to Christ, and their earnest desire to help in the Master's work. Mrs Adams is a Vice-President of tie dominion Pnion. and will be much miss, ed when she leaves. Whenever our Executive has needed legal advice, as on the question of registering the Union, Mr Adams has always given Ins help and advice so freely that it was a pleasure to have to ask for it. Out of the hurly-burly of political strife as President of the N.Z. Alliance, Mr Adams has retired Vo the dignified calm of the Judicial Hench. We shall miss him as our leader in the fray, but we are glad to have men of Mr Adams’s line abilities, high-toned character and great ideals on the Bench. Our readers will be glad to know that Mr Adams is at one with us in his desire to protect our little girls from sexual degenerates. Judges and magistrates do not make our laws, they can only administer the laws as already made. That Mr Adams is fearlessly enforcing the law against these crimes, the following extract from our local papers will show: “Addressing William Albert Henry Love, who had on the previous day pleaded guilty to a charge of incest, the Judge said. ‘You have nothing to say why sentence should not be passed upon you. 1 am not surprised. 1 have had some experience in these cases, and 1 have never heard a worse one. You an* the father of an unfortunate child, on whom you gratified your criminal animal lust. The child was living in your home and was entitled to your protec1i m against the whole world. You betrayed your trust. You are sentenced to two years of hard labour. I further order you to be detained for a term not exceeding eight years for reformative treatment.’ To Robert William Pegley, a circus labourer, who had indecently assaulted a girl only ten years of age.

His Honour said, 'You liuve been convicted on your own confession of a crime that shames manhood. You have prowled about the pleasant places of this city, and in one of the parks provided by the generosity of Auckland's citizens you found three little children, sent out by their mothers, who had a light to believe that they would be perfectly safe. You bribed the two youngest to leave a little girl 10 years of age in youi company. There is no ciime calling for condemnation in strongei language than yours. Little children must be protected from such men as you. so that places provided for their innocent pleasure, where they can enjoy the good things God has provided for them may be safe. I am going to sentence you to the maximum term of imprisonment. 1 will go further in your case. This is one of the few’ offences for which the law has retained the right to inflict corporal punishment. I should feel that no adequate punishment had been meted out to you unless it includ ed something of that nature, not chiefly by way of punishment to you, hut as a deterrent to you and others from crimes of such a beastly nature. \on are sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment with hard labour, and to be flogged once with ten strokes.’ ”