AVONDALE WOMEN'S CLUB.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 16

AVONDALE WOMEN'S CLUB.

A meeting of the Avondale Women's Club was hole] in the Blockhouse Bay Hall on Tuesday afternoon, Miss Newton presiding. Mr. W. E. Arey read a very interesting paper entitled "Charles Dickens as a Social Reformer." His writings, said the speaker, exposed the dreadful state of prisons, and the hopelessness of those imprisoned, particularly for debt: the cruelty practised toward little children in the name of the law. and of so-called education; the unsympathetic Poor Laws, and the workhouses so dreaded by the poor. This gloomy picture was separated by only three-quarters of a century from our own time, "and there was no doubt that Charles Dickens, the great humanitarian, had been largely instrumental in starting reforms, which had led to the brighter picture of to-day. Mr. Arey read many quotations from the works of Dickens in support of his contention. Mrs. Kenneth Gordon read from " Pickwick Papers " the scene in the courtroom of Ltipkins, the magistrate, and she also gave a sketch "Hettv Higden," from " Our Mutual Friend." A nearly vote of thanks to Mr. Arey and Mrs. Gordon was proposed by Mrs. Met- j calfe, and carried enthusiastically by ac- I clamation. Tea, served under the direction of Mesdames Gill and Grccp, closed a very successful afternoon.