WOMEN PATROLS.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 283, 28 November 1919, Page 8

WOMEN PATROLS.

THEH-. WORK AND THE WAR. . . _At the present time there are in Auck. land two women patrols, 'Mrs. M_Hu_-h and Miss Ballantine, who have recently returned from London, where they been engaged in prevention work upon the streets during the war. Mib. mx. ; Hugh, formerly of Auckland, who" has spent a lot of time in Taranaki, left for the front, after her five sons had voluateered. Two went with the Canadian troops, two with the Australian forces and one -with the New Zealanders, and of these she has lost two by death, it was with the intention of f ollowin» her profession of nursing that ehe paid her passage to England. Miss Ballantine went from AVanganui as one of the volunteer sisterhood, and spent nine months in Egypt working in canteens till the New Zealand forces- were ordered to France. Then she left for 'England, where she met Mrs. McHugh. in January 1917, and took up the work of a' V.M.C.A. club •which, was established at AValton-on-Thames. Here they worked amongst the overseas .boys for ten months. In October they went to Codford to take charge of a canteen, and it was while at this place that they were inspired by an appeal from the boys to go to London to -work as their mothers and sisters would have done amongst the - men on leave, and to find them accommc. * dation for the time. There was a fearful shortage of beds, and of necessity a big circle to cover to get sufficient ac-. commodation for the boys. An appeal was made to the Y.W.CA. to organise for this need, and motor lorries and means of conveyence were pressed into the service to carry the men to places where beds could be procured. One thing resulting from the experience in London led them to "work amongßt the girls as weU as the boys, and they were engaged in this work of prevention for eighteen months. Both returned to New Zealand about a month ago. I n speaking before the Y.W.CA. delegates on Wednesday, Miss Ballantine, "who took Airs. McHugh's place because the strain has affected Mrs. McHugh's eyesight temporarily, 6aid that the war had advanced things in many ways in the four years it had held sway, hut it had given an impulse to venereal disease that it would not normally have had in 200 years, and if the English-speaking races were not to die out there must be a new -war against disease from tha moral, social, and physical standpoint. The New Zealand boy who returned on leave found the only woman to greet him and hold out a welcoming hand was the ■wrong one. The multiplications of hundreds of similar cases has caused disease to be spread broadcast, to the danger of so many innocent women and' children. Unless the women of New Zealand become acquainted with what their men folk went through in addition to the flame of war, and unless they are educated to safeguard their sons and daughters in the future. New Zealand will know a terrible retribution. The women patrols, dressed in khaki, similar to- the uniform of the boys, and with peaked hats, tramped the streets till early morning. Soon they learnt that the New Zealand boy was glad to see women from their own land who stood to them in the light of their own mothers and sisters. The New Zealand patrols hecame one with the Women's International Street Patrol. -When they left there were 30 women at work—ten Americans, three Australians, four Canadians, four New Zealandeis, and nine English—patrolling streets most frequented by overseas soldiers from 8 p.m. till 2 a_n. and often later. Their work was not the work of women police. The task of the woman patrol is to help in the way that a motherly mother or sympathetic sister would help her boys. Jt has been stated that the solution of this war problem lies in the hands of the right kind of women, but they must awake to the vital importance *to the nation of moral as well as physical health.