TREATMENT IN HOME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22257, 9 May 1934, Page 8

TREATMENT IN HOME

ALLEGATIONS BY GIRL INMATES ——— | MINISTER TO INVESTIGATE. Allegations against the conduct of the Salvation Army Industrial Home in Parneli, Auckland, and the treatment of two girls were contained in a statement handed to the Minister of Justice (Mr J. G. Cobbe) from the Society for the Protection of Women and Children recently. " I wish to mention the matter of two girls who have made allegations against the Salvation Army receiving home in Parnell," said Mrs N. M. Molesworth, inspector of the society. " The home is gazetted under the Prisons Act, and I am bringing this matter up with a view to having a full inquiry into the truth of the girls' statements. I understand that the Parnell home is under the full control of the matron, Major Claydon, who 19 responsible only to Colonel Osborn, chief secretary of the Salvation Army for New Zealand. There are no official visitors to these homes, and we ask that official visitors be appointed. One of these girls is on probation, and the other is not, and what they say. . . ." Mr Dawson Donaldson (a member of a previous deputation which had waited in the room while Mrs Molesworth put forward her case): I would like to make it clear that we are not able to formulate any definite accusations against anybody We have got only half a story, but we are convinced we have sufficient to merit the closest. possible investigation. Publicity at this juncture would be entirely wrong. Mr A. J. Stratford, another member of the Justices of the Peace Association, also urged that there should be no publicity at thig stage. After glancing at the typewritten statements handed to him, Mr Cobbe said he would have the matter very carefully investigated. When the matter was referred to Major Claydon, matron in charge of the Parnell home, she said that at. present there were 21 girls in the home. On a recent Thursday the two girls who had made the allegations escaped from the home by tying sheets on to a bed and sliding down them from a two-storey window. While in the home, they had seemed quite happy and contented. They had run away, however, and had told " a fearful lot of untruths." " I would prefer that you got in touch with Major Gordon, the Samaritan officer," said Major Claydon. " For any other social body to go to the Minister of Justice before coming to US-first and putting the allegations before us—why, it is a most unchristian thing .to do," said Major Annie Gordon. " There has never been a case of this kind before, and the Army Home has been going for 50 years. I think it is wicked, and I shall certainly go to the president of the society concerned. Surely everybody knows the good 'work of the Salvation Army by now. These two girls have told the biggest crop of falsehoods that have ever been told. Anybody can go through our homes at any time. You can go up to the place yourself and ring the bell and go through now if you want to."