SLUMS OF AUCKLAND.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1097, 8 April 1911, Page 14

SLUMS OF AUCKLAND.

(By Tolceraph.—Special Correspondent.) Auckland, April 7. While the slums of Auckland migbt not seem real slums to persons - accustomed to the jioor quarters of tho World's big cities, they aro still pretty bad. A press representative has been making a . sort of housc-to-houso inspection. He says tho insanitary dwellings aro not always bunched together, though they fall as a rule into small areas, nor aro they all private dwellings. Many of them havo in their windows the 'sign "Board and lodging," or "Beds to let," and they aro tho resort of casual homeless callers, who stay for a night or two, -or for a week or two, or oven, permanently. Somo of these houses aro decayed, overcrowded, and filthy. Within a comparatively small radius of the centre of the city aro • a number of buildings which are specially good,"' or bad, and examples of several kinds of undesirable premises. There aro a number of old men an,d women in Auckland who arc a great trouble to the authorities. With no means beyond their pensions, they livo 'in tho most meagre style, iu the cheapest houses they can find, and their dwellings are often dirty and insanitary, bccauso they cannot keep them in any better state, but they refuse to go to the old people's homes or even to the Veterans' Honie, p because if they would, so they consider, they would lose their liberty. Sooner than do that they drag- along in squalor through their declining years. All the houses that come, within tho scope of this article aro devoid of conveniences of any kind, • as well as. of adequate ground space, and their usual water supply is a tap outside the back door, or ev.en out in the backyard.