POVERTY IN SYDNEY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1626, 29 April 1903, Page 31

POVERTY IN SYDNEY

COMPARISONS WITH NEW ZEALAND. SYDNEY, April 27. Miss Florence Balgarnie, the temperance lecturer who lately toured Now Zealand, in an interview, said:—“During the twenty-four hours since I landed’ in Sydney I have seen more signs of poverty, misery, dirt, drunkenness and out-o>f-workness than during the whole twelve months I spent in New Zealand. i: You never see a working man in New Zealand sitting by the side of the road eating with unwashed hands. The working man there is .the aristocrat of the country, and has raised himself to a standard of comfort I never remember to have seen anywhere else. Again, one does not seo the extreme of riches, and, on the other hand, never sees rags. There is not that aloofness and separateness between classes noticeable elsewhere. . I was impressed by the simplicity of life in New Zealand. They take people more for what they are than for what they are worth.” The fact of the Sunday Closing Act being to a large extent a dead letter had much to do, Miss Balgarnie thinks, with rousing prohibition sentiment, and the success of the movement at the recent local option polls was largely dno to the women’s vote.