PRIDE AND POVERTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1929, Page 7

PRIDE AND POVERTY

LOWER HUTT SCANDAL MOTHER'S TERRIBLE TIME (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, December 11. “It’s the most shocking case I’ve ever come in contact with in all my thirty years’ experience, and I have seen a few bad ones,” said Inspector Fletcher. “Yes,” remarked the Borough Engineer (Mr Bush), “it is damnable that such a thing should happen in a country such as this. Just think of a man being gaoled for three months because he committed a crime to provide food for these bonny children.” Such were the comments of the officers of the Lower Hutt Borough Council on entering a house in Randwick yesterday afternoon. • A tour of the premises showed a series of absolutely bare rooms, except the kitchen, where there was a table some three feet by two, and a pot. There was not so much as a box to sit upon. It is the home of a mother and nine children, the eldest aged twelve years, a girl who was tending her mother, who r 'nly last Sunday gave birth to a child, with never a soul in the world to welcome it except the woman herself and" other children. There was not a bed among them all, not a plate, dish, nor so much as a knife and fork. The father, a T.B. case, said to be not mentally strong, after months out of employment, was six weeks ago convicted of false pretences and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. The woman staggered on, too proud to let her case be known, and bit bybit everything in the home went to provide food.

Some weeks ago attention was drawn to the case, and Inspector Fletcher went to the house, but the woman was too proud to let him in, and assured him that she was all right. However, dire necessity made an application for charitable aid necessary, and assistance 'to the extent of £l/19/2 per week was given, but this was quite insufficient to make up the leeway and provide for the expectant mother and eight children living in' the bare house.

Yesterday morning, the true state of affairs became known and met, houses being ransacked and bed, bedding, food, etc., being provided. One woman working in the office got a day off, and armed with a scrubbing brush, soap, and disinfectant, went round and cleaned and sweetened up the whole house, and bathed and tidied up the children. Naturally, they think her just Christmas. Still, there is the problem of the future. At the last sitting of the Lower Hutt Magistrate’s Court, the State Advances Office obtained an order for possession of the premises, because the instalments had not been paid. Through all the days of the woman’s trouble, the house has been unlighted, because the Power Board cut off the power supply, the accounts being overdue. It will be ten weeks before the father is free to work, even if he can get it.

EXAMPLE FROM SYDNEY. MAORI’S DISTRESS RELIEVED. It seems that the milk of human kindness still runs freely in Sydney. Recently, when Albert Tipene, a Maori, was arraigned before the Paddington Court for being caught in the act of, robbing a home at Woollahra, it was explained that the man and his wife and two children were starving. When the police arrested him and discovered the truth, a collection was taken up at the station, and £3 immediately sent to the Maori’s home at Bondi, where the destitution of the family was made obvious. A local bootmaker, who heard of the case, contributed to the relief fund and stood bail. A shopkeeper, milkman, butcher and others went to the rescue, and the man whose house had been entered by-Tipene made a plea for defendant’s release, which was granted on the condition that he remained of good behaviour. The children’s money box stolen contained £2 ss, which amount, together with sums from sympathetic ladies in the neighbourhood, was given to the family. A solicitor’’’defended the native without fee, and another lawyer in the Court at the time supplemented the relief drive. Tipene said he knew no words to describe the kindness shown him.