U.S. WRITERS IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25709, 22 January 1949, Page 2

U.S. WRITERS IN N.Z.

MR AND MRS B. SCHRAM

Mr and Mrs Bernard Schram, of St. Louis, Missouri, who are both writers, are now in Wellington, after having spent six months travelling in the South Pacific and the Near East to gather material for magazine and newspaper articles. Mrs Schram said she had found that clothing in New Zealand cost a great deal more than for comparable quality at home. Dresses in the eightguinea range in Wellington would be procurable for four guineas in America, she said. On the other hand, Mrs Schram who kept house for a few days during their stay in Rotorua, said she was fascinated by the low cost of food. It was almost incredible that one could buy two T bone steaks at 3s fid when at home steak was priced at 7s 6d a pound. Commenting on the wonderful facilities for sport open to all in New Zealand compared with America. Mrs Schram remarked with a smile: “I guess you have to play a lot of sport here to keep warm.” Interest in Plunket Society While her husband's chief interests at the moment are in housing and medical services, subjects of vital interest in his home country as well as in New Zealand. Mrs Schram has been studying the working of the Plunket Society, which interests her deeply. This week she has spent some time at the Karitane Hospital in Wellington. Although there were various clinic schemes for child welfare and mothercraft in the United States, she said, there was nothing so comprehensive as the Plunket Society. Women were filling responsible and highly-paid positions in both journalistic and advertising work in America, said Mrs Schram. One firm with which she had worked as a commercial artist and copy writer had had a woman director whose salary had been £lO.OOO a year.

Speaking of women journalists, Mrs Schram remarked that in spite of the exaggerated Hollywood version of American newspaper women they were “still letting the police solve most of the crimes.”