NIGHT LIFE SCANDAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

NIGHT LIFE SCANDAL.

DANGERS OF GLASGOW STREETS. UNEMPLOYMENT MENACE. "Glasgow's secret life is growing more and more evil at an alarming speed. I have investigated present conditions in most of the provincial cities, but none of them approaches Glasgow for such a wicked night life." The words are those of a prominent official of a national welfare society, and when interviewed in Glasgow he made many remarkable statements, which have since been investigated by special commissioners of the "Weekly Record." A truly amazing state of affairs is revealed as a result, and it is no exaggeration to say that poverty, as the sequel to the great unemployment in the city, is directly responsible for the existence of one tragic side of Glasgow's secret life. Within the past few months hundreds of young girls, most of them only in their "teens, have taken to the streets. There are to-day more women and girls of the unfortunate class in Glasgow than at any previous stage in the history of the city. In conversation with a probation officer of the police, it was learned that this fact was solely the result of the acute distress and poverty brought about by lack of decent employment. Dens of Vice. ,; A few nights ago," said this officer, "two girls were brought to the bar of the office to which I am attached. They were sisters. Une was sixteen years of age, the other was not yet eighteen. They had been arrested for importuning. \\ hen brought to the bar it was obvious that they had been drinking. I was instructed to make inquiries regarding them, and I discovered that white they were well dressed—in quite au expensive manner— their home, where lived a widowed mother and two other children, was almost devoid of the ordinary comforts of home life. The girls had told their mother they were going into service, and had thus succeeded in getting away from home and parental responsibilties. They sent their mother a share of their earnings each week. The truth about the life her daughters was leading was kept from the woman, and au endeavour made to tix the girls in some sort of employment." It is the experience of this officer that very seldom is a girl rescued from this particular life. All sorts ot promises are made, but very few are kept, no matter how serious is" the intention of the particular girl at the time. Another authority deprecated the fact that closer police observation is not kept on certain types of dance hall, tea rooms and licensed premises. It was learned that in these places there gather what is called the "casual," a type that only occasionally take a step into the underworld life of the city. This informant expressed the opinion that the police, out of mistaken kindness, are too lenient with this type of girl. Leniency of Authorities. { Tt would be much better tor the girl, he declared, "if she were taken to a police office, made to understand that she was being carefully watched, and given a serious warning. Such a procedure wou d crjve the srirl such a fright that she "would not carry'on with the degraded life. Many of this type come out of good homes. The magistrates, it would appear, grant licenses to a certain standard of dance hall without sufficient investigation being made. Many of these places are nothing else than the breeding ground of vice, and they bring together men and women ot low" mentality and irresponsible outlook. A f'reat deal has already been said and written about the gang menace in Glas•Tow It is no exaggeration to say that the "magistrates by their indiscriminate •-rantin" of licenses to certain dance halls, are encouraging the growth ot these gangs. The dance halls are used as a meetingplace for members of these gangs, and proof of this is to be iound in the periodic disturbances that occur in them. It is no uncommon thing ior knnes and othei weapons to be produced mid-way thiough a dance. Many of them, too indulge in shebeening. and it is possible to purchase whisky in them at almost an\ hour oi the nisrht. Tt- wa= al«o suggested to a representative of the "Weekly Record" that the authon- ?- ; n ® „1,1 he well advised to keep closer observation on a number of the hotels in Glasgow. "To spend halt an hour m tb-loun-e of certain of the Glasgow hotels is a revelation," said the mtormam.