RIVERSIDE. HUTS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 18 July 1923, Page 5

RIVERSIDE. HUTS.

PITIABLE CONDITIONS OF OLD

MEN,

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) ASHBURTON, July 17. Several old men have lately been found dead or dying and miserably cold in flimsily built huts on the waste spaces of Ashburton County. A few days ago one such stubbornly appealed to the magistrate against Vis removal to an official home, and another was charged to-day. An old age pensioner was ..found hanged to a branch of a willow at the riverside, near Ashburton-bridge. A boy made the discovery and told' his father, who cut the rope^and informed the police, the body being removed to the morgue. The scene of the occurrence is a singular riverside settlement of about twenty huts riuilt with kerosene tins, canvas and other material, where the municipality haa permitted pensioners to reside rent-free for the past twenty years, but every death is followed by the destruction of the hut.