THE RESULTS OF DRINK IN AUCKLAND.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3978, 1 June 1885, Page 3

THE RESULTS OF DRINK IN AUCKLAND.

A j eporter of the Auckland Star latply interviewed the matron of the Women's llefuijc, and in tbe course ot conversation asked it there was much destitution in Auckland. Her reply gave him to understand that there was more than was generully believeJ, although it waa not so muc . caused by wnnt of employment as by drink, " Indeed," added Mrs Hutchison, "if you could only see some of the miserable and and wretched houses that I have visited where the children are Btarvini? and deBerted by both father and mother while on their drunken sprees, your heart would bleed for the little once. I could tell you of Bix or seven little ohildren in a wretched house without a morsel of food, and no one near them to look afer them. They had only half a loaf of bread amongst them for two whole days, and >ou may imagine their delight when I carried them some food {mm the bu'cher'u. Th*t was in Newton, but worse cases are frequently to be met with in town. As a rule, th> y are all the immediate rfsultß of drink." One exceptionally pitiable case was related. •'A little eirl," Baid Mrs Hutchison, " only fourteen years of aae, came to me> recently, and gave herself up. Sue had a comfortable home, but her step -mother and herself did not get on well, and Bhe ran away from home. For several months she had nowhere to live but in the Domain, and 6he slept there nitiht after night in all weather. At last she grew weary of her life, and came to the home." We expressed surprise at the statement that the girl had lived in »ho Domain for two or three months, but Mrs Hutchison said this was nothing exceptional. Nunioers i f people, she added, were compelled, throu h force of circumstances, to sleep there ev.-iy niyht.