MISPLACED LENIENCY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2452, 17 March 1909, Page 2

MISPLACED LENIENCY.

It is not a pleasant business to be an informer. It is tbe custom to view those who undertake the unsavoury task of raiding sly-drinking dens, or licensed houses, as men who are beneath contempt., who would not accept the position if they had any honorable instincts, and who may consider they are bound, fpr their pay, to secure a conviction, at any sacrifice of principle. For this estimate of men who undertake a duty more respectable, and beneficient than any performed by _ their critics we are indebted to drink circles. They know that if they can only create an impression unfavorable to such emissaries they will bo able to defy the law and defeat the ends of justice. If the sly-grog seller ;and the lawless publican cannot be brought to justice by the employment of detectives who ado]st every possible means of disguising their object, then they will be able to pursue their evil courses unchecked. As Mr Kenrick must know, 'there is so much shoddy honor about the habitues of drink* shops that even when they have been dragged down to the lowest depths of degradation they will not, to use their own phrase, “Give the show away.” * So that secret sale may be right enough on all hands and yet go unpunished because it is impossible to detect it without bringing to bear upon it the same cunning that characterisse the perpetrators of the offence. —‘Oamaru Mail.’