Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/262

250 to publish or sell a crime comic, there are not official statistics avail- able as to the volume of these things published in Carada or sold in Canada because it is obvious that people trailicking in an illegal mat- ter are not called upon and if they were, would not furnish the statis- tics they might be asked for.

We have in Canada examples which we feel indicated pretty clearly that crime comics were of similar nature to those circulating here have an adverse eflect upon the thinking and im many eases on the actians of young boys and virls. Tam not going to weary your committee with a complete catalog of cases. You probably have had many similar eases referred to you here, but there stands out in my mind particular a case whieh arose in Dawson Creek in the Yukon territory. One might have thought that that rather remote part of that country might be as insulated as any place might be against erime comics, but there was a case there in which one James M. Wat- son was murdered by tavo boys, ages 11 and 13,

At the trial evidence was submitted to show that the boys’ minds were saturated with comic book reading. One boy admitted to the judge that he had read as many as 50 books a week, the other boy, 30.

The conclusion which the court came to after careful considera- tion of the evidence was that the exposure of these children to crime comics hid had a definite bearing on the murder. There was no other explanation why the boys shou}d have shot and killed the man driving past in his ear. Vhey probably didn’t intend to kill him. They were imitating what they had seen portrayed day after day in erime comics to which they were exposed.

The other one is a case of more recent occurrence, reported in a local newspaper on March 11 of this year. I would Jike to read you the newspaper report. It originated at Westville, Nova Scotia:

Stewart Wright, 74, Wednesday told a coroner’s jury how he shot his pal to death March 2, white they listened to a shooting radio program and read comie books about the Two-Gun Kid. The jury returned a verdiet of accidental death and recommended that comic books of the type found at the scene be banned.

That, you appreciate, Mr. Chairman, is a case that occurred since the passage of our legislation, which indicates that we have not yet found the complete answer to this problem,

I would like everything T say be taken subject to that understanding, Tam not suggesting that the legislation we have passed is the complete answer,

I do suggest that it is a beginning in the effort to deal with this problem.

If we had the same genera] situation prevailing in Canada as you have in the United States, that is, a widespread body of opinien to the effect that this type of literature has a harmful influence on the minds of the young, we also had a similar conflict of opinions te that which I understand exists here. The publishers, particularly those engaged in the trade denling with crime comics and other periodicals and magazimes, as I think might be expected, were found on the whole to be on the side whieh held that these things were not a harmful influence on the minds of children.

I think that the explanation for that, sir, is readily available. They have an interest in the continuation of this stream of traflic. I am not. saying, I don’t wish te suggest, that they are all acting from improper motives. I am suggesting really that there is an obvious