THE BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION.

Evening Star, Issue 3736, 12 February 1875, Page 2

THE BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION.

The Rev. Dr Sf dart, in moving the adoption of the report, alluded tq' tfi.e of the chair map (Mr Strode) as to the parses bf increased demands upon the Institution, observing that the authorities at Home seemed to give very extraordinary encouragement to widows with young families to come out here. They came with the expectation of readily finding employment, and believing, too, that the employers would take their children. Of course they were very soon disappointed, and the result was that they gravitated towards JJuuediu, where they got very miserable accommodation, and eked out a livelihood by charing and .washing, while their children were left to the teaching of the streets, finding, their way first to the Benevolent Institution, and ultimately to the Industrial School There was not another cause of misery in Dunedin so active at the present moment as the high rents and the extremelypmperfecfc accommodation in ; houses or absolute want of. any., ,Mauy people took houses at high rente, ana Were obliged to

take in lodgers, the result being poor acoommodation, family squabbles, and separations, and ultimately expense to the Benevolent Institution and other institutions of the community. Ue trusted the citizens would he induced to f ? r th l P ur P oß ® of providing accommodation for the working classes/ It grieved him exceedingly, six or seven months fnr’wuv an u ffork was made » society SLi« f dl fi g A°w Bbe 8be Bold 10 working people, to find that that effort met with little or no support, and had to be abandoned wJL gentlemen were elected offleebearws for the ensuing year President, Mr w k’ Sf" i 6 ’ and treasurer, Mr R. B. Martin ; committee, Messrs las. Fulton, Rennie, Molhson, J Hislop, Kennedy, Bagiev Black, and James Maitland. y As representing a number of lady subscribers, the Rev. Archdeacon Edwards brought under the notice of the meeting the desirability of steps being taken to establish, in connexion with the Institution, something in the nature of a foundling ward. There were two uninhabited rooms at the Institution that might be used for such a purpose, and he asked the committee to take the matter into their earnest consideration. The Chairman, while pronusmg that the matter should receive the immediate attention of the committee, said it was never contemplated to take children into ■ iom the force of circumstances in 1862 compelled them to turn it into a temporary orphan asylum, it being hoped that the children would be gradually got rid of. He repeated that the proper objects for relief by the Institute were excluded from its walls by the children, who bad no business there. The oid men and women were lodged in an outbuilding : a state of things that should not exist. Mrs Mom as one of the first connected with impression that it was formed principally for orphans, but the Chairman said she was laboring under a mistake. It was never at any hme contemplated that children should be admitted. Their rules were a transcript of thoi-c of the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum, which had never admitted a child within its walls, ihe committee would take the whole matter into consideration, and would endeavor to meet, as far as they could, the wishes of the * ladies, who should bring forward a definite scheme. The Rev. Dr Stuart was opposed to foundling^institutions, as being likely to increase illegitimacy. The right way of relieving the misery that had excited the compassion of the ladies of Dunedin was to send those children to individual families, and not to mass them together in the Benevolent Institution, because he thought it could be shown that there was a - great moral danger in the latter course. > The ladies might confer a great benefit by _ seeing that those young women, lifter tfieir confinement, were allowed ib remain a longer time in the Hospital than appeared to be usual.—The Chairman said he would be a strong advocate for taking the ehildren out of the Benevolent Institution, or evep out of the Industrial School, and placing them out in families by twos and threes.—lt was further stated by Mr R. B. Maptin that it was nothing unusual for the committee to bp an plied to for temporary relief by women either before entering or after leaving (he Hospital. I hey had always been ready and willing to give such temporary relief, but they W edways set their faces against admitting the children into the Institution. They used to take the children and put them out to board, hut in those cases the parents afterwards absconded.—After a remark by Mrs Muir that the movement was likely to be better supported if connected with an institution that was well knqwn than "if started as a fresh one, aqd qne by Archdeacon Edwards that (be Indies wdqlq' furnish the committee with a statement pf their views the mgetjng separated. ' 1 ’