Manawatu Daily Times An Appeal to Citizens

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6864, 21 May 1932, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times An Appeal to Citizens

There never was a time when the need was greater for an organisation working in the interests of girls. The trend of modern business and industry has drawn the girl more and more away from the seclusion and protection of the home, thereby creating a need for a protective and preservative organisation. If in a normal business period such a need was evident, surely to-day with abnormal conditions creating uncertainty and chaos that need has become clamant. Unemployment amongst girls has created very great hardships and veiy real dangers, and every centre of population requires an efficient and experienced organisaion to handle this noiv and difficult problem. The Y.W.C.A. has shown a fine sense of its responsibilities and a quick appreciation of the dangers and difficulties besetting the path of the business girl threatened with unemployment and in all the cities of New Zealand and Australia has been doing notable work in helping to find employment and in tiding girls over their difficulties.

In this respect Palmerston North also has reason for thankfulness that it has an association working perhaps too unobtrusively but none the less efficiently rendering service •of the greatest value to the city’s young women and through them to the city itself. A particularly fine work was done for unemployed girls last year, no fewer than 70 having been placed in employment, while more than 350 were given temporary assistance. What does such a service mean to the business firms of this city? What does it mean to the parents of the working girls? That such a service is necessary will be readily admitted. But it must also be borne in mind that no association or organisation can carry out such a work without financial outlay.

The Palmerston North Y.W.C.A. is faced this year with the possibility—indeed with the certainty-—of greater demands on its hospitality and help, and its need of financial assistance is therefore all the greater. The strain on its purse last year left a deficit of £2OO, and it urgently requires funds not only to square accounts but to provide for the heavy calls that will be made this year. The city cannot pass on its responsibility for such work without providing the wherewithal to do the work.

To-day is Blue Triangle Day. An appeal sponsored by the Palmerston North Botary Club is being made, and we believe citizens will respond readily to assist in a work which beneficently touches the home and civic life of the community at its most vital points.

There is a man in New Plymouth who is said never to have ridden on a tram. The other day a humorist, in whose mind apparently bulked largo the tram department deficiency of £7OOO, presented the confirmed pedestrian with an envelope containing a shilling concession card and a note asking, “Why walk when the trams are running 7” The recipient waited at a stopping place and handed the envelope, card and note to a conductor.

Fishing is nearly always a game of patience; scores of tunes it is one of exasperation. There was an incident at a Wanganui wharf recently which proved that fact. Several patient people were holding lines fully hopeful of herrings being attracted by tempting baits. Nothing happened, however, but a grinning boy came along with a kerosene tin of refuse. This he emptied into the water and with calm precision jagged 60 odd fish. As he funded the sixty-fourth, the last of the lonely line holders was travelling a fast Toad home. He was muttering under his breath,

Seventeen nominations have been received for the extraordinary election of a committee for the Cambridge District High School, which is to bo held on Monday. The election was rendered necessary by the action of the committee elected at the recent annual meeting of householders resigning in a body at the close of tho meeting. At that meeting the Chairman, Mr. A. N. Macky, and another old member of tho committee were defeated, and it was considered that the attendance was not truly representative of the householders.

Perhaps it is a commentary On the times that the post-matriculation class at tho Palmerston North Boys’ High School this year is the largest on record. The sixth form, which comprises youths who continue at school to specialise in selected subjects following the completion of their normal training, usually contains fewer than 20. Unemployment, and the consequent dearth of jobs for lads leaving school, has resulted in a huge increase in the size of this class and a corresponding broadening in the ranue of subjects studied.