NEW WOMEN'S CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 158, 6 July 1935, Page 16

NEW WOMEN'S CLUB.

TALK ON AUSTRALIA.

The New Women's Club rooms were well filled as usual on Friday, when Mrs. W., R. Rowlatt gave a talk on "Backblocks Life in Australia." Mrs; W. B. Darlow presided. The hostesses for the afternoon were Mrs. Wild and Mrs. Humphries. Mrs. Rowlatt gave many incidents connected with the mode' of .life of- tho blacks. "A baby's first wash; for instance, was not with water, that being scarce, but.' he was placed in a hole in the ground,* and covered to the neck with warm ashes. Ashes'and dust being plentiful, were used a great deal for cleaning purposes. The Australian blacks, said Mrs. Rowlatt, were not yet ready for civilisation, and they thrive best when left alone. The work of Mrs. Daisy Bates, who has spent many years among the blacks, was referred to. Tlie wide loneliness of the plains, between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie, a thousand miles of it broken only by saltbush scrub, and the lonely lives of the men who kept the railway lines, were also described.

Concluding with some interesting touches, of the city life in Sydney and Melbourne, and its sharp contrasts of poverty and wealth, the speaker said, "Xo one could' consider that Australia is round the corner until all her unemployed could be placed on constructive work."