POVERTY IN AUCKLAND.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16850, 2 June 1920, Page 2

POVERTY IN AUCKLAND.

! * J SOME DISTRESSING CASES. | While there are in Auckland some j women fortunate enough to bo in a position where tfcoy are liable to bo asked to sign the charter of economy i ing themselves not to waste more than a £10 note on a costume, there are • many more to whom, says the "Auckland Stnr." such a sum would he wealth I beyond the dream of avarice, and iui stead of that being a limit for one 1 gown it would probably be the limit for ' i whole family's clothing bill for a ' rear. There is real poverty, even in \tickland. Renders, no doubt, were hocked to read the other day of a case In Sydney in which a woman 29 years of age hn'd eight children. Her husband rimed £3 l"s Gd a week, and she had tn rto out to work to keep the home to- ■ 'reiher. Sister Esther, a well-known scoial worker in Auckland, says that if n demit-'tion were arranged in Auckland •t could show instances quite as glaring. Sh" quoted a case of a young mother, 31 years of age, with nine children, aged 13 years down to a few months, and the breadwinner earns £3 10s a that bugbear of the poor, t"kos lis fid, and with the pittance is left this woman has to feed and clothe a household of 11. With blankets and mattresses at their present prices the poor cannot, afford them, and some queer makeshifts have to be used. Alrnnclv Sister Esther has fitted out 157 families with warm winter things. Rent hits the poor very bird, and this leads to a lot of overerowdine. In one house j of sis rooms, for instance, there are j two families, one of a father and .mo- \ ther. and seven children, and the other ! inmi'v a mother and four children. Sis- I tor Esther mentioned a fact which j shows wh::t a struggle Bomp of the now! have to scrape through. "JTany oi* the men in luge families that really cannot make both ends meet have not had a new suit of clothes since they were married,'' sho remarked.