London's The Place For Boys and Girls

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 188, 11 August 1936, Page 10

London's The Place For Boys and Girls

THREE BROTHERS MADE GOOD AND SENT FOR BLIND FATHER

Boys and girls brought from tho provinces and distressed areas to jobs in the West End are making good. The latest report of the great Marlborough Street Juvcnilo Advisory Committee states that last year, although tho most difficult in the ten years of its existence, had proved the most successful. As an example of the work the ease of a boy brought from a distressed area of Scotland is cited. So happy was he in his work in London that his two brothers applied for transfer in quick succession. Tho three boys did so well that they were enabled to bring to London their father, blinded in a pit accident soon after the transfer of the first boy, and their mother to London. Now they have set up home once more together. “Although there have been a few cases,” it is stated, “in which the boy has proved to be unsuitablo for work in the West End and has been placed in another district, or has revealed a character which caused him to be returned to tho care of his parents, the majority of boys have settled down and are making satisfactory progress in their work.” To make the boys and girls from the distressed areas happy and comfortable on their arrival in London, they are met, conducted to their employers, and taken to their lodgings. Special efforts are made to combat home-sickness. Four shillings a week is provided for pocket-money for boys and girls under 16, and five shillings a week for those over that age. Only vacancies which offer definite prospects of advancement or the opportunity of learning a trade are accepted, says the committee, and it is a condition that the wages are generally such that the boy of girl is self-supporting at the age of eighteen. During 1935 thero was an acute shortage of juvenile labour in the West End, especially in Oovent Gardeu Alarket. Vacancies for boys and girls notified to tho committee iu 1935 totalled 20,659, compared with 19,010 in 1934. Blueings in 1935 were 5,873 boys and 7,218 girls, or a total of 13,091, compared with 5,934 boys anud 6,781 girls, an aggregate of 12,715 in the previous year.