MOTHER’S ORDEAL

Waipa Post, Volume 39, Issue 3088, 12 December 1929, Page 5

MOTHER’S ORDEAL

FAMILY OF TEN STARVING.

HOUSE BARE; FATHER IN GAOL.

(By Telegraph. Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

'‘it’s the most shocking case I have ever come in contact with in all my 30 years’ experience, and I have seen a few bad ones,” said Inspector Fletcher.

“Yes,” remarked the borough engineer (Mr Bush), “it’s damnable that such a thing should happen in a country such as this. Just think of a man being gaoled for three months because he committed a crime to provide food for fhese bonny children.”

Such were the comments of officers of the Lower Hutt Borough Council upon entering a house in Randwick yesterday afternoon. Their tour of the premises showed a series of absolutely bare rooms, except the kitchen, where there was a table, some 3ft by 2ft, and a pot. There was not so much as a box to sit upon. It is the home of a mother and nine children, the eldest, aged 12, a girl, who was tending her mother, who only last Sunday gave birth to a child, with never a soul in the world to welcome it except the woman herself and the other children. There was not a bed among them all, not a plate, a dish, nor so much as a knife or a fork. The father, a T.B. case, is said to be not mentally strong. After he had been months out of employment he was six weeks ago convicted on a charge of false pretences and sentenced to three months’ gaol. EVERYTHING SOLD FOR FOOD. The woman struggled on, too proud to let her case be known, and bit by bit everything in the home went to provide food. Some weeks ago attention was drawn to the case, and Inspector Fletcher went to the house, but the woman was too proud to let him in. She assured him that she was all right. However, dire necessity made application for charitable aid necessary, and assistance to the extent of £1 19s 2d a week was given. But this was quite insufficient to make up leeway and provide for the expectant mother and eight children living in a bare house. Yesterday morning the true state of affairs became known, and resulted in other houses being ransacked and beds, bedding, goods, etc., being provided. One woman, working in an office, got a day off, and armed with a scrubbing brush, soap and disinfectant, went round, cleaned and sweetened up the whole house, and bathed and tidied up the children. Naturally they thing her “just Christmas.” Still there is the problem of the future. ELECTRICITY CUT OFF. At last sitting of the Lower Hutt Magistrate’s Court the State Advances Office obtained an order for the possession of the premises, because instalments had not been paid. Through all tlie days of the woman’s trouble the house was unlighted, because the Power Board had cut off the power supply, accounts being overdue. It will be ten weeks before the father is free to work, even if he can

Later advices state that the man was not imprisoned for stealing goods for the sustenance of his family. Residents of the town have rallied and at least the immediate needs of the wife and family have been supplied.