POVERTY AND SQUALOR

Evening Star, Issue 19660, 13 September 1927, Page 11

POVERTY AND SQUALOR

' FAMILY’S WRETCHED HOME Salvation Army odicers in Sydney lately found what they described as one of tho worst cases of destitution seen in their forty years’ experience in that city. Becoming interested in three small hoys who attended tho Mission Sunday School, Captain J. Sloan visited their home—a small, old-fashioned building at Paddington. Hero the three bays were found living with their mother in indescribable conditions of poverty and squalor. The only food in tho house was a small quantity of sugar and a half-filled tin of treacle. The kitchen was a wilderness of old utensils, empty preserving bottles, newspapers, and rubbish, and was in an incredible state of filth.

Tbo only lurnituro in tJio living and dining room was a tabic, throe rickety chairs, a deal box, and one or two pictures. Papers served as a covering for the table, on which were a few unwashed dishes, empty tins, and a parrot in search of food. Old newspapers, many of them spotted with grease, littered the floor. A narrow, steep flight of stairs led to the tiny attic rooms used as sleeping quarters. Here the ceilings wore so low and sloped so much that it was impossible for a person of average height to stand upright anywhere except in a small area m the centre of the box-liko space. In one of tho rooms stood a tumbledown double bed. its only covering a dirty, worn-out mattress, a rug, and various articles of old clbthing. In tbo middle slept a cat. 'The only other piece of furniture was a washstand covered .with dirt and grime. In tho second room there wore two single beds one covered with rubbish, tho other, used by the three boys, spread untidily with a dirty eiderdown and a motley collection of old clothing. Between tho two beds was an old chest of drawers, also littered with rubbish.

Every room was pervaded with a musty, foul odor. The mother, it was stated, does washing by tho day. During her absence the eldest boy, aged ten, looks after his two brothers, aged six and two respectively. They spend their days in the streets. Their food, they told the Army officers, consisted of bread and treacle three times a day, with an occasional meal of soup. Although their hands and legs were caked with dirt, and the two.voungor ones were liberally marked with sores, all three boys appeared to have robust constitutions. Tho father, it was said, died three or four years afto.