WOMEN PATROLS.

Evening Star, Issue 18061, 31 August 1922, Page 4

WOMEN PATROLS.

Our. correspondents who wanted to know what the Dunedin women patrols didi to justify their salaries, or the demand which has been made for their retention, will probably be satisfied! with, the information given in the interview vtith Dr M'Kibbm, District Health Officer, which wo published yesterday. “Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner,” was the Preacher's description of the shameless woman, seen by him from his casement, by whom the young man, “ void of understanding,” was led astray, “as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life." But a sight only a little different might have met this Observer's eyes. He might have seen a young man “ with on impudent face ” and a young woman who was simple, and too much given in her simplicity to strolling the streets and placing herself in positions of jeopardy. Then, if the tragedy had been the same, tho Preacher’s only usefulness would have been to m-afah’se about it afterwards. The duty of a woman patrol would be to speak a word of counsel to the foolish young woman, and, if she was very young, take her home to her mother—to at least see that tho tragedy was averted.* Zeal without tact, and tho finest, tact—the zeal that might run easily to false suspicions andl officiousness—would he fatal to those duties. Wisely performed, as they seem to have been by Dunedin patrols, it would be difficult to set limits to their value, lit is easy to see how many young people require shepherding, when apparently no warning is given against the moat obvious dangers and no control is exercised over them at homo. The Dunedin patrols have been mothers in the absence of mothers, and they have performed other services, described by the Health Officer, for the community’s good, which at salaries of £2OO a year have been cheaply paid for. Not many would like their jobs; but the plea of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children that the services of atjeast one of them should be continued at a cost of only halfsalary to the Government, the other half being found by the society, ia not one that can reasonably be refused. If the patrols throughout New Zealand are doing as much to prevent the spread of venereal disease as Dr M'Kiibbin indicates, it would be fatuous retrenchment to dispense with one of them, while a Commission is taking evidence on that secret scourge which will cost more probably in a lew weeks than all their salaries for a year, and be fortunate if it does nearly as much good