WAYWARD GIRLS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16914, 1 April 1929, Page 7

WAYWARD GIRLS.

BAD COMPANIONSHIP POLICEWOMAN'S VIEWS . SYDNEY,,March..£ . With the appointment-of four additional policewomen in Sydney, and the prominence given recently';to cases that have disclosed the.depraved lives led by some, Sydney girls,; it is of interest to hear the views of the-chief of. the women police, Miss Armfield,, on girl offender*. She says that the girlwho "goes-wrong" usually begins...her career of delinquency at the age of eight or nine years. The' v almost invariable cause of the trouble, she says, is natural laziness and the influence of some older companion. "We know of the existence ■of these girl ringleaders," she samV "and, occasionally we catch one of .them, bnt always another springs up in her place." Girls often begin to go wrong by 'wagging it' from school, sneaking a day here and a day there without their parents' knowledge The elder girl usually tells the younger girl of some boy friend she has, and convinces,her that it is silly-to work so hard.at school when there is such a good time to be had outside. A t dozen policewomen.would;not-be enough if we were to watch ly. I was at Bondi the .other day and I saw sights there that made me sick. If I had been on duty I would certainly have arrested some of the girls. The condition of affairs on some; of the beaches is disgusting." Many of the foolish girls, said- Miss Armfield, came from welbto-do families, and enter upon immoral lives because they are kept too short of pocket-money, or because they want to escape from too strict parental control. One girl whom Miss Armfield marched home to her parents—respectable,. middle-class folkhad taken a room in town and was living with various young men of her acquaintance. Each Friday she used to go home and hand over 'to her mother a sum of monev which she led her te believe she had earned in business. She had left her employment .secretly. -Miss Armfield is not amoni those who blame the picture shows. She says that the picture theatres *re efficiently patrolled by ushers. She thinks the,, motor car is one of the greatest-of modern evils, and is responsible for the.first big mistake in the lives of many girls.