WOMEN WHO DRINK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20555, 5 May 1930, Page 12

WOMEN WHO DRINK.

SOCIAL WORKERS' PROBLEM. THIRTEEN APPEAR IN COURT. As a result of observations bv the police in hotels during the past three weeks, 13 women of various ages were charged in the Police Court on Saturday morning with being idlt> and disorderly and habitually consorting with undesirables. In deprecating the conditions which led to the arrest of the women Major Gordon, of the Salvation Army, said the extent to which drinking had spread among women and girls was causing the .social workers great alarm. The worst of the evil was that girls under 16 were being led to drink and other evils by consorting with undesirable women of this type. Eight of the women pleaded not guilty to the charges, and two of them, Lilian Bartholomew, 29, and Beryl McPhcrson, 37, werfe defended by Mr. Smyth. Counsel said Bartholomew and McPherson were both married women, and drink appeared to bo their failing. Tho Magistrate- Mr. F. K. Hunt: They are married women, and yet they desert their homes and go out drinking with this crowd. I would like to have a word or two with the publicans who supply them with liquor.

McPherson and Bartholomew wcro convicted and ordered to come up for sentence if called upon. They were also prohibited. Sentence of throe months' imprisonment was passed on Margaret Royal (35), Susannah Hearlc (46), Hilda Gilkes (30), May Stokes (47). Annie Hartley (54), Mabel Jackson (29), Jean Andreson (49) and Phyllis Hunt (26). "We will have this lot in a building by themselves somo day," remarked the magistrate.

Constance Oliver, 2ti, was sentenced to 0110 month's imprisonment, and Margaret Barker, 43, was committed to Pakaloa Island for 12 months.

Margaret Helen Stocklcy, 45, said shn was tho mother of nine children, tlio youngest of whom was aged three years. Tolling her that .she would bo sent to I'akatoa for 12 months if the slightest complaint was made against her again, the magistrate convicted her and ordered her to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months. She was ordered to take out a prohibition order.