SLUM'S OF MELBOURNE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 204, 22 May 1908, Page 8

SLUM'S OF MELBOURNE.

• (ritOM OUU SPECIAr, COniIESrONDENT.) Eight in tho heart of ono of Melbourne's most thriving suburbs stands tho Gipps Street Mission Church, Collingwood; and connccted with it is a band of earnest workers who labour long and late to amoliorato to somo extent tho social conditions largely brought about by tho industrial system of Victoria; Thoy quiljp roaliso that drunkenness and gambling aro tho causo of much of tho povorty with which they liavo to doal, and they wago war continually with these twin yicco of humanity; but much of it also is attributable to causes far deeper than tho vicious habits of tho individual. It was into examples of this last particularly that I sought information from ono of tho Mission Sisters, and, at her request, accompanied ' tho. lady on ono of her morning rounds.

Tho first homo visited was that of a richfpoor man whoso weekly wago is £2—when lie lis iu work. A Rothschild in linanco could not compete with this housemother' in making 405.-'cover meat,, vegetables, groceries, milk, boots, clothing, tobacco, school-pence, lodge fees,. lighting, firing, and house rent for a family of seven. The woman is an excellent housewife, and fortunately had a]so 'a trado at her finger tips. "How I shodld hayo; managed without a trado when .tho children wero babies and my husband sick and out of work, tho Almighty only knows," she said to,her.visitors; ."many a„timc have I sat-from dawn till dark machining shirts, often with..my baby lying across my lap, to make. sufficient for rent and food. I receive 2s. per dozen for the shirts—that is good pay, for I'm reckoned a competent hand.". The tiny house of four rooms is scrupulously clean and tidy, but even so,is mean and sordid in every sense of tho words. .Time payment is necessarily the way in which most of the necessaries of life aro purchased x with sucli peoplo. Indeed, tho only wily of procuring a new garment or article of furniture 'is. by time-pymcnt. "A shilling at a timo you dorit' 'miss so much," said another woman; "but it comes awfully hard when my husband is out 'of work, and tho man comes round for tho payment, and you havon't got'it, and all is'lost." , Down a .swelteringly hot alley lies another house in which a woman lies sick and iveak —too weak almost to flutter tho light paper fan which keeps tho swarms of vicious black flies from worrying her. Her husband gavo her a cup of tea heforo leaving at 7 a.m., and now it is'near noon, and no ono lias been near. "But he'll be in soon now, Sister," sho cheorfuljy assured her visitor. And. so'one goes on through street after street of hot, stifling houses', hero a row of grimy-yellow brick ones that sneer at you as you . pass ; there somo old tumbledown hovels; that jeer and leer aliko at visitors and inhabitants. Going into ono of-tho worst, s through tho door which opens straight on tho street, thero is a small crooked room, a few tattered bits of oilcloth on tho flcor, otio rickett-y table and a couple of chairs,somo flvmarked coloured-prints, and a photo of the woman and her husband when thoy were married. Tho listless weary look of tho woman and her ragged clothes mark her as the wifo of the "casual labourer." Opening out'of this room ; is another; nothing on tho floor, two bods made of packing cases, and covered with rags and bags— not a sheet or a blanket—that constitutes "the entire furniture. At tho back of this is a dark arid dirty: kitchen, opening on to a still more dirty yard. In it thero is not a flower, not ; a blade of grass, not a tree, nothing hut stark, blank dirt, from tho midst of which a couple of half-clad and woodon-faced children stare at tho visitors.

The next, woman's husband has deserted her, and she is left worse than a widow with two littlo children ■ dependent 011 her. Sho earns her living by cleaning rabbit skins, working from dawn- till dark for 3s: per day, with only casual employment. Her sister (an adult), who lives with her, earns Is. per day as a. "peeler" in a jam factory. Both women are obviously unskilled labourers, and aro. saturated with that cold, listless inert, : a which springs from- long-continued poverty and degradation. \ .

Is it any wonder that the children of such homes grow up .weak-kneed,_ narrow-chested, guiltless of stamina and virility, fit only to swell the .throng of inefficients? Is it any wonder, that this herding together, theso. insanitary habits, this malnutrition, aro ' all serving to permanently injure .the growing boys and girls, and to foster those diseases of civilisation which in some quarters seem to become daily moro rife? And not physical disease alone,- but moral diseaso also. "My oldest daughter earns 10s. per week now," said one mother, in a'wretched hovel of-a home, "but most of it goes in dress and finery and amusement; and I daren't say she must givo'-me more lest she tako to worse courses to get tho money." Tho woman did not speak' bitterly or ovon crossly, but in calm, level tones as if sho were stating an ordinary fact of daily occurrence—as, indeed, she was. It is oasy enough to blame such a girl, but look round at the children in these streets, and what can one expect from human beings thus born and bred. They aro not children at all. Children aro bright-eyed, chubby, shy. 'Theso are dingy, grimy, screeching littlo' elves, their faces already withered, their minds already seared, their eyes unholily wise as they watch tho orgies of their ciders. One turns away appalled. Surely of ■ such is tho Kingdom of Hell I And all'this right in, a heart of a city that has justly been termed tho Oueen-, o'f the South; Melbourne, with its wide streets, its voluptuous gardens, its beautiful women-, its sunny skies, a city barely three fenerations old, and yet repeatine; line for lino all tho vices of tho Old World, wealth and development in art and science and literature on the ono hand, poverty' and degradation in crime' and misery on the other.