SLUM CHILDREN

Evening Star, Issue 14187, 12 October 1909, Page 8

SLUM CHILDREN

MELBOURNE RESCUE WORK. THE BOYS' TRAINING FARM. The pictures illustrating the Rev. G. H. Cole's lecture last night showed spots in Melbourne's slums euphoniously and no doubt fittingly called "Hell's Corner" and "Cut-throat Alley." The houses, in the glimpse given of them, did not look so bad, and Mr Cole commented on this. " You're thinking that they don't look, so bad," he said; "but you will understand when I tell you that in four rooms four families live, eat and drink, and sleep together, and probably the only bit of furniture, the only object in the room, is a kettle for boiling water in. London cannot show worse slums. It is in such places that we gather our material—from conditions the like of which I cannot speak of in a mixed audience such as thi6." The audience were shown varying types of the boys rescued, some of them bright, intel-ligent-looking lads, others too plainly degenerates, the offspring of degenerates. ' There are some there," he said, " of whom you can'never make men."

Then the lecturer came to tbe cornerstone of his work among the boys—the n7? T T m i nß Farm> betwe en Femtree Gully and the city, twelve miles out. Itwas Mrs Cole from whom the idea ema nated. £I,BOO had been spent lately in adding to the building and bringing it within the four comers of a highly specialrsed system, while still leaving it a home. The illustrations showed the schoolroom (now in charge of a State school teacheT), the dormitories, the bovs' dress' mg room, the bakehouse, the kitchen, the orchards and playgrounds, and stables and piggeries. The boys are not locked up !« u"" bufc their clothes are If they want to run away," said Mr Cole, amid laughter "they have to do it in their nmhtclothes. They wouldn't get very far. Under superintendence the bovs do all the cooking, which involves the -reparation of 100 meals a day. bake fch» bread, and malp the place self-supporting by the labor of their hands in the fields and orchards. Last year £4OO worth of fruit and vegetables was sold from thhome. One fine apple tree provided wenty-two bushel cases. An nidustry lately introduced, and at which the boy's were shown working, was that of steam ing frtnt, for use in the out season. By this means frmt brought sometimes £l6 a ton, instead of £6.

Jh S" * t u h ?> ct « ror t«ok his audience right through his system of training, which converts 7o per cent, of the bovs from a nuisance and a menace into good citizens and clean-minded men.

There was another side to the lecture—the rescue of men and women plunged in debauchery and dnnk and the help of the holpk»s old folk A fine picture 'showed 6.000 people seated at the tables on the occasion of one of the annual old people's i~A mn , ° n '- V inalification." commented Mr Cole, "is (hat the diner shall the Bi-chlonde of Gold Institute for the rechunation of drunkards, the home for men in Latrobe street, where from 200 to 300 meals are giyen away daily, and where seventy beds are nightly provided. The casual ward contained the necessary f„uiigator. Every man had to go i„ there before turning in. " After a, man has been m there for four minutes and a-miarter." said Mr Cole, " the only thing that- come= out alive is the man himself." The laughter was loud, and it redouble when he added : " Oh, yes. W€ have plenty of opportunities of studying natural historv I can toll you.

The Mayor fMr Walker) presided over the large a-udience, and several councillors were present.