VAIN SEARCH FOR WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20988, 26 September 1931, Page 6

VAIN SEARCH FOR WORK.

PONSONBY BOY'S ILL-LUCK. II ANXIETY OF HIS MOTHER. *IO MONEY FOR NEW CLOTHES. On the books/of a city labour exchange are the names of nearly 40 boys who are looking for work. Yesterday several of them appeared at the office to ask the usual question, "Is there anything doing V* and the first one was stopped and questioned. This lad—strong, stockily built and wearing a schoolboy's blue shirt and shorts —said he/had been out of work nearly two years except for a few odd jobs. For the past nine months he had done no work. He was 16 years old, knew no trade and had never been to night classes. He had left school, he said, at the age of 14, because he had to earn some money. "And you have not earned any ?" the boy was asked. "No," he replied, his eves conveying a mute protest. He said he had "chased after hundreds of jobs" but was always unlucky. llis father also could not obtain work. Selling Ice Cream in Theatre. The boy said he left school at Christmas, 1929, with a proficiency certificate, ■ as his parents needed his services to supplement the small earnings of the family. The case with which he slipped into a job / at fust raised false hopes and confidence. He commenced/by earning a few shillings a week selling ice creams in a suburban picture theatre, but gave up the job because lie did not like it. "It was a lazy sort of job," the lad offered as excuse. "There was too much banging about in the dark and I pined for some work out-of-doors. 1 am no good at toft jobs or pen-pushing." Next the boy sold newspapers, but that paper ceased publication, and he was left stranded. Then he saw an advertisement for a "Boy, just left school," for a city garage, and there was great rejoicing when he secured the position until it was learned that it/ was only of a temporary nature while the regular boy was away sick. That job lasted two weeks. Then followed a long period of inaction, during which the lad spent month after month searching the city for work, answering advertisements, standing in long queues at seven o'clock in the morning, interviewing foremen and following up clues given to him by other boys and well-wishing friends of the family. But 0 no luck came his way. Handicapped by Pair ol Shorts. Once tiie boy earned 10s for packing eggs into crates and another time he prevailed upon a greengrocer to let him go round with the fruit cart and sell fruit and vegetables// He liked that immensely and earned good money for one week by receiving 4s for every pound's worth he sold. But, he soon drifted back to the daily round of looking for work. In the course of these disclosures it ■was revealed that the boy nurses a secret humiliation: he cannot afford to go into long trousers. Schoolboy snorts, it would appear, are a serious impediment to the successful art 'of selling fruit and vegetables, and the boy is conscious of an inferiority in liis present attire. His parents cannot afford to buy him a suit and one or two escapades involving the appropriation of his brother's Sunday best have led to unpleasant quarrels. In the boy's home in a Poiisonby Street ' his mother was preparing dinner. "1 am at ray wits' end to know what to do about Jackj" she said hopelessly. "If I had known what things were going to be like I would have kept him at school two vears longer, for it is really less expensive to keep him at his lessons than to have bim wearing out shoe leather looking for work. The boots lie wears out are a ruinous expense. Everything he has on is patched and mended. I cannot afford to buy him anything new; he simply has to Wear his brother's clothes. Wandering About the Streets. "And it is not Jack's fault," the mother added bitterly. "No one could try harder than lie does. Day after day 1 get up at six o'clock to give him an early breakfast before he goes out to answer some advertisement, ■and I, am sick and of seeing him come back without getting anything. And he himself is often on the yerge of tears. But what is he to do ? 'All down this street there are boys about bis age, and older, without work. Jack does not smoke and he has no hobbies that might cost him money, but it costs a lot to feed a boy of his age. "It worries me, too, how he spends his time. Most of the boys he goes about with are out of work like himself, and . I do not think it's, good for him. I do not even know where he gets his sixpences to go to the pictures. lam sure it is bad for him to be wandering about the streets with nothing to do, although I do not believe he would get into mischief. 1 wonder how much longer it will go on ? It seems so unfair. There is that boy next door; he left school at the same time as Jack, got a job in a grocer's shop and has not been out of work since. He has nice clothes pnd a bicycle, and always looks the regular little gentleman." The mother/called: "Dinner is ready!" and Jack came out of his bedroom in football jersey and boots. "Never mind about all that now," he , pleaded. "I am going to play this afternoon; the day is too good to g.ousc." And a sturdy All Black in embryo turned himself heartily to his roast beef and potatoes.