POVERTY'S HOMES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 514, 22 May 1909, Page 7

POVERTY'S HOMES.

DISTRESS IN WELLINGTON.

(By Dominioa.)

A badly-lighted, bare room,- with dingy paper on tho walls seen- through a fusty atmosphere, and, on tile floor, nothing but a worn horse blahkot and a little:heap of worn clothing,' not a stick of furnituro to be seen, hot the 1 vestige of a -mattress—this is tho bedroom of two Wellington children.

• A tiny back room at tho back of a wretched three-roomed cottage in the very slum ml est part of Wellington, a room just large enough for a double bed, covered with a patchwork quilt, two chairs) and a tiny-box-table. This is the home of two adults who are past earning their own living. A little wretched hovel hidden away at tho back of othor houses, in a damp, dreary poverty-stricken streot, and -this not the home of one family alone. In the small bedroom opening off tho kitchen live four people, a mother and hef three tiny children —no way of earning money, no one to earn it for them, only the bread of charity 'to support them.; , . - A three-roomed cottage, again hidden behind another cottage, wnich* shuts out from the tinier ono , most of tho daylight, two tiny mtija rooms, and a still tinier, ono at tho back, and here two people spend their lives—an. old man who keeps, himself and hiß invalid son on his old age pension, and depends on charity to eko out tho moans of living. , A cottage home, composed of woodhouso and coalhouso knocked into one compartment; and furnished comfortably enough, perhaps healthy enough, were tho shed not so very old and the approach to it so damp, and here two women live with a little-'child, neither of thom ablo to do more than earn the ..money for tho rent. A house, with:an outwardly good appear* ance—a sort of whitcd sepnlchro for, within, it is saturated, with disease germs—oomea neirt. The little yard at the back is flooded with water that soaks into the tumble-down kitchen, and the living rooms upstairs might better be called dying rooms, so leaky, low., and unhealthy are they. Na. wonder that the unfortunate people whom 1 poverty has compelled , to inhabit this grim house are tacked with pain and chokoa with throat or lnng trouble. ■' v : -These are some of the homes of poverty, some, but by no means all. • : Visifora to . Wellington who have seen something of slum-life in . the cities of the Old World are apt to congratulate us upon our freedom from the miseries that the slums prodnce. "If these are your slums," said one charitable lady, "thank God for them.' 1 ' -It is not; necessary to, return thanks on this account. Thero may be no actual slum areas in Wellington, but bouses : that would be a disgrace to any . civilised community are sown here and there all about the more crowded city streets.. Tho casual observer would never notice them; thosa fortunate people whose daily walks lead them along . Wellington Terrace, Hobson Street, and the Quay, would never dream that they existed; would nover dream that, behind the squalid houses in hideous streets ;aro little cottaco shelters—ono could not call theni; homes—little three-roowed ; or . fourroomed places that aro even in their tinincss capable of division into homes for two or _ more ..families, . sublet: at prices that strike one as altogetther exorbitant. One has, to sea it to understand how the tiny cottages are cut up, how crammed and cramped for room. At first, when_ ono vjsits many of poverty's homes, the impression is not entirely, sad, for the bravest attempts-have been made to brighten the dingy Tooms, and hardly a home tis so hopeless that not a pifitnro or illunjiitcd card is to be seen on its walls. There -is this to be remembered, too, that people are not as a rulo born to extreme poverty in New They come down to. it,' ; and in a journey thr.ough their homes, it is made abundantly clear t-litt nearly every occupant has seen better days. That is part of the great sadness of it .all. ...'"Miserum est habuisse. et nihil habere" was a saying of the ancients, and they were right. i "Wo always l:fcvo causes of extreme poverty, 1 paid ono, who.had worked:among• the poor for ; years, _ V'but this year it has como. sooner, and ; it.;is. more widespread." "This ..will, bo a .bitter, winter," said .another' who workod on different lines.. "Alrwdy the pinch of poverty is,felt much more severely than in recent years." ..To thoso who . know, what to /expect, the present condition of things appears very bad; .to tho newcomer it' is appalling. \ Tho very extreme of misery exists hero. Many of the saddest cases are. those of widows .-.with lifct-le children to sup,port,.and no means of earning money. Manjcases of excessive; poverty are; duo to the illnes3 of the bread-winner,; sometimes .only, a temporary disablement, , but often . muoii more serious, and the mother is >divided between anxiety for her children's health and for her-husband's life. : ■ It seems almost harder when tho husband is an able-bodied , man' and eager for the work he . cannot obtain.Many are the cases of this sort,- and there will be very many more. "I cannot get work,'.' says a man. "I have" walked: everywhere; round about looking for it —to Island Bay, Karon,, and Potono—and thero is not a singld thing to bo had. I am willing to do anything, and I nave, nothing to do." Ho is a kindly, cap-able-looking man, and in happier times many an employer would be glad to have his services; "I have asked everywhere, for ,w;ork," says. another, "but they tell mo at' • the bureau, that, in all this district there is only one vacancy in my trade, and that is in a branch I, have not touched." One loams that several brick kilns havo closed down, that a: big company has ':' di»missed, forty men during the past few weeks, that, a private employer on a small scale is dismissing twelve men next Saturday, that wharf labourers" are finding little to do, and it_ seems an open, question -whether tho man without a trado or tlio man with onb fares worst. • . ' -

' A very sad caso;is that of a man who is able and willing to work for the support of his wife and six little children. He looks as though he could not be lazy, and meantime ■he ..and his family are living - in a wretched rot-infested dwelling, with scarcely any of the >aTest. necessities of .life.' No hods, for tho children, scarcely clothing to cover them, 1 tho house everything that such a cottage: should not be, though the rent that is paid; for it must do a. good deal towards making the landlord opmfortable. Drink-is at the bottom of very many eases of poverty, but it is not to bo blamed for any of those mentioned herej. and it must be that very many cases of blameless indigenco that never reach the officials of onr public ; charities go to swell this form of 'Wellington's misery."