ROGUES AND THE NEEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20867, 8 May 1931, Page 13

ROGUES AND THE NEEDY

SOCIAL WORKERS' PROBLEM. " SIFTING WHEAT FROM CHAFF." SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. [BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] "WELLINGTON, Thursday. " The difficulty a modern person has in these times is that often he has to be an' amateur detective. For every ona genuine needy man that comes to the door there arc often 12 who are rogues, I am sorry to say," said the Rev. W. Bullock, when urging the necessity for scientific investigation in sifting the rogues from the needy, at the annual meeting of the Wellington Unity Mission. It would have to be done in Wellington this winter, he said. Mr. Bullock described a case that had come under his notice only at 5 o'clock this afternoon. A man had come to see him and they had been discussing the possibilities of getting work when the man fell down iri the passage-way in a dead faint. He had called doctors, and they had certified after examination that the man had not had food for a long time, in fact, that he had not had a bit of food since Sunday.

A great deal of work in cases such as these would be done Peter's Mission, he said. He was not grumbling, but he wanted to prepare his audience for what was likely to happen this winter. Unfortunately many of the men who appealed for, assistance were no more than rogues, and the great difficulty was to tell the needy from the rogues. "It is very pathetic when a man comes to your door with his arm in a sling and you know he is a rottei' and that he has only just put his arm there, and then you bump up against a genuine case where a man is dying of hunger," he said. "It is then that you begin to see the necessity for scientific investigation."