CHRISTCHURCH SLUMS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11292, 18 August 1922, Page 4

CHRISTCHURCH SLUMS

INSANITARY CONDITIONS. PLEA FOR THE CHILDREN, PEB PRESS -ASSOCIATION. CHRISTCHURCH, August 17. Slum conditions and unsatisfactory housing conditions were discussed at a meeting of social workers, and the following resolutions were carried: — “<li That the Health Department be asked to use the powers it possesses under the Public (Health Act to insist on all insanitary houses in Christchurch being put, forthwith, in a sanitary condition.” (2) “That the Health authorities be informed that children are being born and bred in these insanitary dwellings; that tie children themselves are indescribably filthy; that attention has been drawn to those matters for some time past but that whatever steps may have been taken by the authorities little improvement has taken place in either the condition of the houses or the children dwelling therein. (8) “That in some few cases parents who are mentally sub-normal are living together and mothers are giving birth to sub-normal children and constituting large families the care of which will, in the near and distant future, cause considerable expense to the State. It is advisable that power be taken to separate such parents and segregate each sex in special institutions, such as farm colonies, or that provision be made for surgical treatment.”