FACTORY GIRLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13926, 7 December 1908, Page 5

FACTORY GIRLS.

PRAISE FROM A DEACONESS. [bt telegraph.—own correspondent.]

Christchubch, Saturday. One of the deaconesses in. Christchurch, in speaking of her work to a newspaper representative, had little but good to say of factory girls. They were a cheerful, hard-working class, she said, and, with but few exceptions, respectable, reputable, and praiseworthy members of society. Of course they - had their faults, the worst being that they spent the greater part of their earnings on unserviceable drees, but this, when all was said and done, was but a small thing. Tales were told, and frequently with much circumstantial evidence, of drinking among young women, but she had neither seen it herself nor noted any of the effects that might be presumed to arise from it. The chief drawback to factory life was that it did nothing to make those engaged in it fit for the duties of married * life. Young women, whose whole short lives had been divided between the school and the factory, found on marriage that they were confronted with duties that were entirely new to them and with difficulties the very existence of which they had never suspected. Unable to look after their households, they fell into habits of extravagance, and, perhaps, became careless of results. So far as the care of children was concerned, they were sometimes absolutely ignorant, but various societies make it their business to teach them, and already the work done by these societies was beginning to bear fruit.