THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8196, 28 July 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1906.

At a meetiug of the Keaearoh Department of the Koynl Ueographioal Society in London last month, Dv A. 0. Haddou, University Lecturer iu Ethnology at Cambridge, brought forward a proposal for a highly interesting and important expedition to that section of thePacifio extending from New Guinea to the Fiji Islands, and including New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, whioti generally goes by the name of Melanesia. The object of the expedition, which it is desired should extend over a period of at least five years, id to effect the systematic scientific exploration of Melanesia in respect to ita geography, geology, butany, zoology, and anthropology. Dr Haddon said that there were in particular many anthropological problema which required investigation in the immediate future, since the dying out or modification of the native arts, orafta, oustoms and beliefß wonld soon render the solution of such problems difficult, and even impossible. The expedition, he urged, should have abtolute control of a comfortable and steady steamer. The permanent staff on board should consist at least cf the

director, a medical man, a photographer, two stenographers, and, if possible, an artist. Accommodation should also be provided for a number or investigators, but these would not necessarily form part of the permanent staff. Equal facilities would be accorded to British and foreign students), and it was a novel feature of the expedition that trained lady investigators would be invited to take part in the work, their sex being an advantage in certain branches of investigation. Suoh au expedition would be an expensive undertaking, but the results obtained would constitute a mine of information for the present and future generations of mankind, and would amply justify the proposed expenditure of time, labour, and money. Sir George Goldie, Major Darwin, and other scientists expressed warm sympathy with Dr Haddon's proposal, and spoke as to the value of the results Usely to accrue to various departments of science from such an expedition. Ibe prorosal js well supported, and there is likely to be little difficulty in raising the necessary funds.

London, so the "Daily Express" tells us, has its "Jungle" as well as Chicago. It is to be found in the heart of Wbitechapel and Buthnel Green, the Home of the sweated alien tailor. These East End victims of the sweater struck recently, and the strike directed attention once more to the terrible conditions under which they live. Twelve thousand of these men struck as a protest against their low wages and their hours. "They are not prepossessing in appearance," says the "Daily Express." "Their faces are sallow from poor living and insanitary dwellings. They are herded like rata in cellars and garrets, and after working for sixteen or eighteen hours in a foul hovel they go home to rest in a room in whiob a wife and half a dozen children live by day and sleep at night. In this Jungle the ravening tiger of consumption waxes fat. Men who escape consumption are marked down by chronic bronchitis. The seeds of lung disease are in the air of every East Epd sweating den." These men, it is pathetic to notice, | are striking for a twelve-uour day. In a small upper room in these slams, in which a siugle English carpenter would refuse to work, half a dozen wretched Jewish tailors are herded together for fourteen or sixteen, or even twenty hours at a stretoh. Their wages are ! little more than £1 a week, a large proportion of which goes in rent, j and most of them have four or five children. The consequence is that they are half starved, and live oh'efly on herrings, it is not the shopkeeper they complain of, but the middleman sweater. For in stauoe, frock ouats sell to oheap shops at 10d, The sweater keeps from 6s to 7s of this, and the workman gets the Lalance. Many lounge coats are made for 6s 6d, of which five workmen divide 3s between them. All the sweater has to provide is cotton and a room 'in his house, and the cotton he buys with the prnoeeds of cloth savings. For £1 or £5 a tailor can become a mas- | ter, and if he is inhuman, take his revenge by sweating his employee, but numbers toil for years without baing able to save so muoh. And all over London men are wearing clothes made in these sweating dens, without knowing the misery in whion they are produced. "Half the men in Lonon would take off their coats in a hurry if they could only see the conditions in which they are made," a half-starved tailoi said with a grim smile. "They are not wearing coats merely. They are wearing part of our lives, of which we are robbed by our, sweating masters" In the meantime every ship ooming to Loudon from Germany au'd Russia brings | more aliens anxious to work for the j money rejected by the strikers. The | Aliens Act is practically a dead | letter: