Untitled

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 19, 12 May 1909, Page 10

Occasionally one dropsacross people who seem to love being dirty. This is pardonable in a case of extreme poverty, but when the offender is wealthy it is little short of criminal. A gentleman travelling in Victoria described one homestead, where the owner was a comparatively wealthy man, and the place was a ditry, filthy establishment. A family of nine lived in a bark hut of three rooms, without door or window. In the front room the walls were hung with the skins of every wild animal known in Victoria. Under the tabic were several cats quarrelling over the carcase of a rabbit, and from a rafter was suspended a bag, from which honey dripped into a milk-pan, and about 1000 flies and three dirty children were attempting to catch the drippings. Another child brought in a water melon, but there was not a knife in the house, so the eldest girl, about 24 years of age, seized an axe and broke the melon i« pieces, which she offered th traveller with her grimy hands. The remarkable fact about this case was that the man was the owner of one of the most magnificent places in the. north-east, and was worth about £20,000. It’s a cheerful, edifying fact.