SYRIAN DWELLINGS IN DUNEDIN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 19 April 1907, Page 1

SYRIAN DWELLINGS IN DUNEDIN.

A REVELATION IN CLEANLINESS. Wednesday's Dunedin "Star" has ike appended article on the Syrian quarters in Dunedin : — Our description of certain of ike Chlfnese houses in Stafford and Walker streets seems to have led to some wild assertions, notably those of one of the delegates at the Trades and Labor Conference. The most unfortunate thing about the latter circumstance was that the statements, coming from an accredited Labour leader, had to bo telegraphed all over tho colony in the ordinary course of Press Association business, and gave, perhaps, a disagrcable impression much too highly coloured. It is true that one experience of the Chinese dens was so sickening that our representative ha? no Wish to repeat (. i experiment, but it is a different matter altogether with the Syrian houses, and as the latter are no doubt classed by many as being in the same category as the Chinese, it seems desirable that the public should know all the facts, in order that there may be a due discrimination. On Monday Mr J. F. Arnold, M.H.R. made a necessary statement concerning the Syrian houses iv Walker street, and an inspection yesterday afternoon not only showed that he had. not stretched matters, but that life had hardly done the spotless cleanliness of the Syrian habitations full justice. In consequence of that statement, one of our reporters asked Mr Arnold to get him access to these dwellings— -not an easy matter, since the Syrians seem to be a sensitive people, each regarding his housn ob his castle, just as the. Engllsliman does. To this proposition Mr Arnold assented, and a call was first made on Mr G. G. Adess, a member of the Syrian community, who took the party round. It may be said right away that the inspection was a revelation in cleanliness, but it also revealed something more. It threw a sidelight on the question Why are the 1 Syrians here? The number of religious pictures on the walls of the rooms brought back the echoes of the missionary books and the tales of deadly strife always recurring in the Lebanon mountains between the Mnronites and the Druses. The Mai'O-nit-es are a branch of the Christian Church, and ,tlie Druseß a half-heathoil sect, addicted to most disgusting modes of life and unspeakable forms or intermarriage. It was therefore with some trepidation that, the reporter put the question to Mr A'dess : "Are you Maronites or Druses?" for to imply one as against the other was to convey a deadly insult. "I am Greek Church," replied Mr Adess, "but most of the Syrians here are Maronites. This cleared the way for further converse, and it presently appeared that the majority of the little Syrian colony in Walker street come from the seaward side of the Lebanon ranges, and mostly from the quaint little town of Tripoli, on the , Levant, off which the battleship Victoria was sunk x by the Camperdown in ■ 1894. In one of the bedrooms, where the holy ikons were — it was Mr Coory's dwelling— the party stopped and took closer stock of the pictures.. One was ' a photograph showing a party at Rome ' when the Maronite Patriarch paid a ' visit to Pope Pius K. to convey felicitations on his elevation to the Popedom. ' In the next room was a Syrian drawing of a city — a city of minarets and white ' houses and pleasant streams. This, i>ir Coory explained, was Damascus, dating ' from the time of Abraham, and almost as primitively picturesque nowras it was then, and there, too, were its famous streams — Pharpai- and Abana, "rivers of ( Damascus." "Would'nt you rather live ■ there than here?" asked the reporter. ' "Of course we would," explained Mr ' Adess and Mr Coory, both speaking ' simultaneously, "but life is unbearable 1 under Turkish rule." Then they went ! on to refer to the massacre of 1860, - when the pasha let loose tbe Turkish 1 garrison on the Christian inhabitants. < Stories wero still told as to how their i men, and more especially their women I fared, in the stress of a butchery of i which the details were past description. J The Maronites on the coast of the Lev- t ant still dwelt over the samo volcano t since, with certain waves of popular « feeling, they could never tell what would i be incited by some mad moollah and or- ( dered by some semi-irresponsible pacha. < And apart from this greater danger ( there was the universal corruption c which made it always possible for the i rich man to bribe the cadi or judge, i and place his heel for ever on the poor < man's neck. Mr Arnold broke in here : i "You mean," he said, "that if you had | Syria under New Zealand legislation i you could ask for nothing better." t "Exactly so," was the ready reply. In \ a way it was a curious thought— the an- j cient city of Damascus under our up-to- £ date laws and its concomitant innumer- [ able company of inspectors of every kind. As the party passed from one ] dwelling to another the pervading piety j of these poor expatriated people was everywhere in evidence. One woman in ( one of the meaner houses, had neither < ikons nor holy pictures, but in front of < a photographic reproduction of Holman i Hunt's picture— "The Light of the World"— she was burning a little light floating in water. As to cleanliness anyone who goes to the Syrian quarters looking for an insanitary state of things has made a mistake in his mission. To describe each ' dwelling in detail would be to furnish ■ a long array of clean cups and glassware ' in the living rooms, and duchesse chests, pier glasses, yellow satin lace-trimmed j curtains, real Turkey carpets, brass-ap- ' pointed bedsteads, and clean linen in j the bedrooms. These latter, in general \ were better appointed and cleaner than '', are the bedrooms in many hotels. The ' Syrians themselves frankly admit that I many of the houses are old, and they mentioned that the European landlords are not always willing to effect repairs, \ but they do the best they can under the circumstances. In some houses, whero they have acquired proprietary rights, : they have effected considerable improvement in the asphalting and brickwork of the back yards. It is not too much to say that there are hunrdeds of artisans' dwellings in Dunedin not half so well appointed and not nearly so^clean. The prejudice with which these people are often regarded pains them, and they seem to think that if the people of New Zealand understood the melancholy state of things in their own country, which drives them all over the world, there would at least be a more tolerant and sympathetic spirit. They are industrious and law-abiding, and some of them are naturalised British subjects. It is a pathetic little colony from first to last. . It may be remarked that the visit roused all the cunning curiosity of John Chinaman. jN 0 sooner had the party appeared in the street than all the "Yellow Agony" poured out through all the loors and gaped and chattered excitedy. They knew all about it. Here , -.vas the man whose note-taking wasn't ■?oing to help the sale of their vegetibles much, and who had derided the famous cook-shop, which the! proprietor limself had expressly described as 'Welly ni." And they know some s >arts of the legislature when they see 5 them, for among the chattering and the shrewd winks, there once occurred the ! -.vords "Missee A'nold." i