A DISTRESSING STORY

Northern Advocate, 11 December 1929, Page 6

A DISTRESSING STORY

misery at Lower hutt

MOTHER ’,S TRYING PREDICAMENT. 'Per Press Association.-'— Copyright./ WELLINGTON, This Day. "It is the most shocking ease I’ve {ever .come in contact with in all my 30 lyears’ experience, and I have seen a jr’ew bad ones,” said Inspector PletchS.M*. “Yes,” remarked the borough engineer, Mr Bush, “ it is damnable that such a thing should happen iu a country such as this. Just think of .‘,i man being sent to gaol for three months because he committed a crime .o provide food for these bonny children.” Such were the comments of officers of officers of the Lower Hutt Borough Jouncil 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 tabl£ .some three feet by two feet, and a pot. There was not so much as a box to sit upon. The house is the home of a mother and nine children, the eldest a girl aged 12 years, who, when officers entered, was tending the mother, who only last Sunday gave birth to a child with never il soul iu the world to welcoim; it except the woman herself and tin' other children. There was not a. bed among ithem all, not a plate or dish, nor so much as a knife or fork. The father, a T.B. case, said to be not mentally strong, after a month out of employment waS, six weeks ago, convicted of false pretences and sentenced to three months’ gaol.

The woman struggled on, too proud |to let the case be known, and, bit by Ibit, 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 jhim she was all right. HoweVer, dire I necessity made application for charitable aid necessary, and assistance to | the extent of £1 IBs 2d a week was 'given, but this was quite insufficient 1 to make up leeway and provide for the 'expectant mother and eight children (living in a bare house. Yesterday a more true story of the state of affairs became known, and the (position was met, houses being rarisack|ed, and bed, bedding, food, etc., providedf One woman working in an ofjfico got the day off, and, armed with ' scrubbing brush, soap, and disinfectant, wont round and cleaned and sweetened ip the whole, house and bathed and tidied up the children. There is still the problem of the future. At the last sitting of the Lower Hutt Magistrate *& Court,the. State Advances Office obtained, an order for possession of the premises because instal-' ments had not been paid. Through all the days of the woman's trouble the house has been unlighteeT because the Power Board cut off the power supply, accounts being overdue. It will be ten weeks before the father is free to work, even if he get it.