"ABSOLUTE HOVELS"

Marlborough Express, Volume LIV, Issue 127, 1 June 1920, Page 7

"ABSOLUTE HOVELS"

r JTHB NEED FOR TOWN- }" . ■ < PLANNING.

rA series of moving lectures of Wellington's slums were taken a few days <*go under the auspices of the Town .Planning Association. In referring )£o the fact at a meeting of the Ha}fcaitai Municipal Electors' Associa4Sori Mr A. Leigh Hunt stated that ■fuy1 accompanied the .photographer, land he could say that he came back absolutely disheartened. "I never credited," he said, "that we had such places in our midst. I can retfer you to several places—two will be ■enough for you, I think. We went Snto one L-treet, and there chanced to (be two .or-three children playing tehou*. We gave them some pennies 1& pose before the camera, which ftb.ey did. One was a little girl icajrying a baby. The girl herself fhad sores all over her face, and her «j-es wei;e running. Ihe baby Stself was. an. absolute bag of bones; jftafvation was written all over it. tNext to the girl was a little boy, ■{and he Was an idiot; it was evident €ri- his face. _A still smaller child )3had only a singlet on, and was icoVered with filth and dirt." Pro•jceading, Mr Hunt said that they ijfound absolute hovels in that street ■i—houses 10ft .wide, by no more than H6 ft long, which had been there lor 30 or 40 years. Tn one they Vound a. returned soldier living with |bis wife and children (Cries: of *"Skame.") That man was paying U4s a, week rent. If they saw such jcojiditions and did not come back (absolute town planners, he would be ! greatly surprised. Such conditions ] jirere breeding disease and vice, and J making rebels; lie did not know how fehese people could be expected to be ■loyal with such surroundings. Putting humanitarian principles aside, '{be thought that on absolutely sorklid. grounds.alone it would be good jbuslness on their part to take v {much keener interftst in. the, housing iquestion. (Applause:) The pictures, Hie added, would b$ shown at a meetiing of the Town-planning Associajfcion next. week. ,