RESCUE WORK IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

RESCUE WORK IN AUCKLAND.

; THE WOMEN'S HOME AT OTAHUHU. INTERESTING INTERVIEW WITH THE SUPERINTENDENT. At Bishopscourt yesterday a Herald reporter had an interesting chat with Miss Hudson, a lady of charming manners and gracious personality, who came to the colony a few months ago for the purpose of organising and supervising Church of England rescue work among fallen women in the Auckland district. Miss Hudson, who accompanied Dr. Neligan (Bishop of Auckland) and Mrs. Neligan to our sunny land, has been actively associated with rescue work in London, and approaches her task, therefore, with all the knowledge of an expert. It is proposed to make Otahuhu the headquarters of the " Women's Home Committee." "MY OBJECT IN COMING TO AUCKLAND." " You have had considerable experience in rescue work, I believe, Miss Hudson?" inquired our representative. "For the greater part of my life I have been dealing in one way or another with girls and women, and I think I may claim to know them at their best and worst. The best is good; the worst is indescribable. The object of my coming to Auckland is to organise the rescue work in connection with the Church of England, and to enlarge and extend the scope of the work begun by the late Mrs. Cowie, on a small scale, in what is known as the Women's Home. Mrs. Cowie's work, though carried on quietly and within limited lines, was undoubtedly the means of doing widespread good, and it is the knowledge of this that makes the committee of the Women's Home anxious to extend the work Mrs. Cowie had so much at heart. The generosity of the late Mr. Arrowsmith has enabled the committee to do this, and I am sure the citizens of Auckland owe him a debt of gratitude for his foresight and liberality." THE PROPOSED SCHEME. "May I ask the nature- of the proposed scheme " Two separate homes are in course of erection, at Otahuhuone for prevention, and one for maternity cases. These homes will be worked on different lines under the control of one superintendent, and each individual case will be under her supervision from the time of admission to the day of departure. Otahuhu has many advantages in connection with work of this kind. The surroundings are healthy; privacy can be secured without undue confinement; the girls are removed from town influences, and yet Otahuhu is easily accessible from Auckland ; the country afford the means of outdoor life and variety of occupation, which is an essential factor in dealing with restless, undisciplined natures. The course of instruction will include laundry work, cooking, housewifery, needlework, gardening, poultry rearing, and some dairy work. Preventive cases will, in the usual order of things, get a more thorough and comprehensive course of instruction than the maternity cases. The former will stay longer in the home, and will have fewer demands upon their time and attention than the latter. It will be the aim of those in authority to send the»inmates forth fitted to earn a useful and honest living, in a way suited to the capacity of each individual." THE SOCIAL EVIL IN AUCKLAND. "Prom what you have seen of Auckland do you consider that it is better or worse than other cities of equal size and*importance?" . "As a,newcomer who has, as yet, hardly penetrated the surface of things, and who. in so short a.time, can. oul;y have touched lite fringe of the local social evil, I give my opinion with the utmost diffidence and more than a little hesitation. Things here and at Home are so widely different that I feel comparisons so odious —would, in this case, be doubly so, and I feel reluctant to compare the social evil of, say, London with that of Auckland. In London vice is a recognised trade, organised and carried out with an attention to and nicety of detail beyond the comprehension of any but the initiated. The social evil of England is a gigantic evil—the outcome of the unchecked growth of centuries—and it is only of comparatively recent years that people of influence have come forward and openly denounced this grave national danger, so that there is much lost time to be made up. The initiated, who are battling against this crying evil, know, 'as a general rule, where "to find it, what to expect, and in some measure how to deal with it. There is a concensus of opinion among those at Home, who know of what they are talking, that it takes some knowledge of the world, combined with plenty of common sense, and more than the average amount of tact, to cope with any degree of success against social impurity. Ignorance, impatience, excitability, maudlin sentimentality, talkativeness, and goody-goodiness, are the ruination of rescue work." RESCUE WORK IN ENGLAND. " Can you describe the effects of rescue work in England '(" "i don't for a moment venture to affirm

"«L aom ior a. momeiiu veuiuic lu auum that the social evil of England is being dealt with in a perfect, all-embracing way } but when the existing organisations and institutions of various grades and character are taken into account, one cannot but be struck, even now, by the magnitude and excellence of the work clone, and one cannot but admire the corresponding real, practical useful help that is forthcoming in response to strengthen the hands of rescue workers. Then, too, the attitude of the respectable section of society towards this question of social sin. leaves but little to the imagination ; opinion is definitely and publicly expressed by leading men and women of the day, whose every word carries weight and conviction, and yet these very men and women, while condemning the sin, would not for a moment dream of holding aloof from the si drier as if her mere presence carried contamination with it. As I said before, I express any opinion on local morals, with diffidence, but certain facts have come to my knowledge and certain cases have come under my notice, and so my opinion, though given with reservation, may stand for. something. Vice here, apparently, is not the frankly acknowledge, well-organised affair that it is in European cities, but it is none the less harmful and far-reaching. It is, I believe, quietly and insidiously undermining society, lowering the moral tone, and threatening to become a big national danger in the not far distant future. As far as I can judge, and I say this advisedly, vice here has not yet as- | sumed the pronounced and repulsive form in j which vice figures in any great city of ! Europe, but it lurks none the less certainly J under outward respectability and seeming ! purity of life, and will, if not grappled with, : prove itself the cankerworm that will in years to come, eat at the heart of the colony's I prosperity and progress." AS THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. " Have you found the rescue work meets ! with encouragement in Auckland ?" i " I imagine that a certain section of Auck- , land society wilfully closes its eyes to the 1 existing state of loose morals, ignores what i is unclean, and then assures itself there is ! nothing that could in any way offend the susceptibilities of the most fastidious. _ This course of conduct is temporarily sedative to those indulging in it, but it is not calculated to produce a wholesome moral tone in the city or to raise the ideals of the generation that is at present growing up. The social evil has to be faced and fought; public opinion has to be levelled up here as elsewhere ; the young people must be made to see that shame lies in looseness of ideas and laxity of life, not alone in being found out. As long as irnmoralitv can be hidden, it is not apparently looked upon as immorality. Wrongdoers are considered immoral only if they let their wrongdoing come to light. To the ordinary observer the sanctity of I the marriage tie appears to be subject for a

coarse joke, a sneer; the form of marriage is accepted as a matter of custom, but it is not considered absolutely necessary to the union of a man and woman, nor binding if, after the marriage ceremony is gone through, the marriage grows irksome. People thoughtlessly take upon themselves the mast serious responsibilities, and as casually throw them off if they subsequently find them nob all they were expected to be."

VICE AND ENVIRONMENT. • "What of the question of environment?" "In dealing with a question of this land, environment must be considered, for environment plays a large part in forming character and giving colour to the ideals of a people. The physical conditions of. Auckland, the climate and food, tend to develop the material side of human nature, and the social conditions, instead of meetin-' and providing against the contingency, apparently aid and abet it. Boys and girls, men and women, mingle without restriction or supervision, and parents and guardians throw those committed to their care into the very jaws of temptation rather than exert themselves to control and safeguard those for whom they are responsible, supervision, if any, is "of an extremely casual kind, and this in spite of the fact that the very enterprise, energy, and perseverance which have made Auckland what' it is in some 60 odd years in the rising generation take the form of restlessness and love of excitement of some or any kind. The result is as inevitable as it is disastrous; it is disastrous even now in a hidden but none

the less depraving way, uui, ui j™» >•" «-""*" it will be still more so, especially in a seaport such s.s Auckland, frequented by people of every nationality. The city is spreading by leaps and bounds. It takes no wide stretch of imagination to know that in, say 50, or at most 100 years, Auckland will reach from ocean to ocean; Cornwall 1 ark, now open country, will be but a breathing space in the heart ol a huge, throbbing city. Common sense would show that as the city increases, the social evil will increase, too, unless those who are to-day making history for coining generations, do their duty and grapple with the problem of social laxity and impurity. Auckland, wonderful as she is, is but the beginning jf things, so to speak—commercially, materially, spiritually, morally—and now is the time to wrestle with the evil before it reaches the extent it has reached at Home where, at times, it seems a forlorn hope to ittempt to keep it within bounds even. As each year goes by, the evil will root itself deeper and yet deeper until it crystallises into and becomes an ineradicable part of the city life. Children here are educated, and so far as I see, educated well, using the word ' education' at its current value ; the mental ability of the children is cultivated, but the moral and spiritual needs of their natures are almost ignored, and the very mental training that ought, in conjunction with moral and spiritual training, to fit then to be earnest Christians and able citizens, ■riven by itself simply enables them to be more dexterous sinner. Parental coutro of children and reverence of children for par. ents are fast diminishing quantities and will soon be conspicuous by their entire abSm:e ' A PRESSING NEED.

" What are the most pressing needs at the present time?" " Que of the most pressing needs of the city is provision for what I should call intermediate mental cases; those cases not far enough advanced towards insanity as to be suitable for admittance to an asylum, but yet unfit for their own sakes to be at largeThere are, I have reason to think, many such cases, and while they do not in any way call for special medical attention, they need the supervision of a qualified person, who understands how to deal with them. Hysteria cases might be treated separately by a competent person, for these cases, though curable under proper control, are fatal to the discipline and well-being of the ordinary preventive, rescue, or maternity home.- Motives of economy alone would suggest provision ! for these intermediate mental cases. Asylums are proverbially expensive in the upkeep, but homes for such cases as those to which I refer could be managed with less outlay, for the patients would be quite able to work, and, in fact, would be all the better for a systematic course of employment, suited to lite capacity of each individual. Probably it might be found that some cases at present in asylums could be transferred to the homes for intermediate mental cases, and would benefit by the change, while at the same time there would be a saving of public money. Inquiries in various quarters have led me to the conclusion that there is not at present provision in Auckland for the treatment of lock cases, and this is to be specially regretted in a seaport like Auckland. The lack of such provision is a grave danger to public health, and as the city extends the gravity of the danger will increase. That oven a few cases of such adisease should be< at large is a menace to the well-being of the community, and this matter is one worthy of the attention of all those who have the welfare of Auckland at heart. I would vemture to suggest that even a small special, provision might meet the present demand, and if needed the accommodation could be increased later on. If rescue work is to be effieciently done the cases must be graded and treated according to their grade. It is almost worse than. useless to look for permanent and satisfactory results if preventive, rescue, maternity and intermediate mental cases are indiscriminately huddled together. Each ckss of case needs its own special method of dealing with, and to expect one method of work and discipline to have a like effect on all is about as sensible as to expect one medicine to act as a universal cure-all, and for this reason two homes are essential."