EMIGRATING WIDOWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1913, Page 7

EMIGRATING WIDOWS.

A NEW SEDGWICK SCHEME. (From Our Lady Correspondent.) LONDON, February 2S. Regarded from almost any standpoint, the widow is seldom an asset to society, and it is a wonder that it bas been left to to-day and Mr. T. K. Sedgwick's agile brain to give certain widows a new chance of emigrating and rid ratepayers and other charitable machines of a burden. Some months ago the founder of the apprenticeship scheme for town lads, the initial batch of whom went to New Zealand, laid before the London authorities of the New South Wale's Government a new idea, namely, that of giving special assisted passages to Australia to widows with one child who are willing to bind themselves to domestic service for four years, the child being allowed to remain with the mother. Notice has just been received that the scheme finds favour in official quarters, and a suggestion is made that as soon as possible the first batch of twenty should be sent out to Sydney. The idea being a novel one, the women are going out in two or three parties so that work can be assured for each before she lands—no difficulty is anticipated in providing this by the immigration experts. The widow is to be of the artisan class, and the regulations provide tiiat she must be under 35, with a minimum of one year's widowhood, and, in order evidently that the employer shall not be handicapped by a child that takes up too much of its mother's time, the child must be over fonr. No engagement is to be given to "widows" who are such for convenience, and wish to* slip away from troublesome lords, as the marriage certificate and husband's death certificate must be submitted. The wages suggested are £30 to £40 a year, and the posts for which the widows are thought best fitted are as all round housekeepers for single or widowed farmers in country districts. The child, it is asserted, will act as an anchor to the mother.