OPEN-AIR SLEEPING.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1388, 14 March 1912, Page 5

OPEN-AIR SLEEPING.

CAMPED IN SYDNEY DOMAIN. It was lately suggested in the New South AVales Legislative Assembly that immigrants are compelled to sleep in the Sydney Domain because of the difficulty in. finding accommodation in the city. The director of the Immigration Bureau was asked to investigate the matter, and he detailed an officer .to explore the Domain and examine all and sundry found sleeping there. The officer sent was the chief boarding official of the Department, who sees all tho immigrants on arrival. He commenced at 11.30 p.m., and was out till 2 a.m. He was accompanied by two plainclothes police officers, nnd every man on the grass was interrogated. The official reported that he found 131 men camped in the Domain. They were of various descriptions, but only bne was an assisted immigrant. There were seven new arrivals, four from America, among the open-air sleepers. One of them sniil lie had some money, but did not want to waste it paying for accommodation when it was i-o comfortable sleeping nut. The assisted immigrant was :i farm labourer, 19 years of nge, bred on a farm. II? arrived in Sydney nbnut four months ago. His story vn- to the. eltVi-t that his pmnbyer made him work too hnr.-I. so hn loft H" ;.iid he nns floepinj: nu!- hpr.auff br preferred it to tho cjunp boarding-houses,