AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1923, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

;. DRUG HABIT VICTIMS. SYDNEY, June 7. Hitherto Ihe alarming spread, of the drug habit in America and Europe has left the great Australian cities coin- .- paratively untouched, hut in recent t months in-Melbourne and Sydney there I- has been evidence that an insidious t traffle has been opened up. as a result - of which many women in the slum areas have been morally and physically degraded. The police, especially m Melbourne, where the traffic lias been most evident, are making strenuous efforts to track down those who are . conducting it. Ai least one agent of , ibis menacing trade has been hud by - the heels in the person of a dealer , named Henry Mi-Ewan —it man -10 ! years of age, who was sentenced at the Melbourne City Court lo six months’ imprisonment on a charge ol having been found in possession of a deleterious drug. The police evidence was tlial McEwan was found to he in possession of a cigarette packet containing 10 small phials of a powderlike substance which, when questioned, he described as “snow” (a familiar appellation for cocaine in the form in whieh it is dispensed). He admitted tlial he had been selling the packets for about two months to women at 2 s each, and then he bought them from a certain chemist. For months the Melbourne police had been puzzled at the condition of women, who had been found in houses in the city, and lying in the parks and other places in a dazed and stupefied condition. It was thought at first that the women were victims ol the opium habit, and the police kept a j close watch upon houses occupied by (Tiinoso. but nothing was seen to support the theory, that opium was being supplied lo the women by the Chinese. After weeks of investigation the police found a woman in a house in Little Lonsdale street, who had just been released from gaol. Elio told til; in tlial her depraved condition was due to her having contracted the “snow” habit. She added tlial. women bought the drug in packets from a man who visited the slum areas: also that it could he bought ill a certain sfinp in the eitv. Enquiries were mady. and the police found that "snow had been introduced in Australia by a man who had been trafficking in the drug \ in Great Britain. They believe that j the man came to Australia some years ! ago, and that he recently visited London to obtain further supplies of cocaine, whieh he smuggled into Australia on his eturn. The cocaine was then prepared in the form of "snow, ’ and Mild in the various States by agenl s.

Cilll-I) KNnmYMKXT. SYDXKY, rliitie- 0. In a remarkable but disquieting artide i:i the ".Sydney .Morning Herald,” Mr A. li. Piddington, K.C., who opposed -Mr Hughes at the lasi Kederul elections, points oul that the feature of Australian national life tit once the most portentous and the least regarded is that the Australian-hurn are a dying race. .Mr Piddington goes hack to 1000, when the fertility of Au-tra-littii parents was 121 per 11)00, ami contrasts it with the census of 1921, when the rate had fallen to 2o per 1000, altuhiigh the marriage lots is about the same. In other \vord>. taking the Commonwrall h as a whole. the position. is (Inti otlr breed is repented at little more than half the rate of I,SGI), when our wealth was inliniLely less, and ottr development. met cl;, primitive. Mr pid.iingloo say-, th.it the practice of Girl it limitation is. pel haps, more pen id;,, in \ us! ralht than it is even in !•'ranee, ami certainly more so than in Ktightnd. Mr I’hldinglon contends that, with the vn t maior.'ly, the desire to have no c ore children is the resc:!; nj economic compl-ior.—another a rgc.it;- '■ t. he sat-. for elidd endowment. C: - the -I I It. •!•!;:■! t|e- CS-ii y 1',,!Ausirab;., ('IliM endowment. be the way, V. as cue of ihe (bad planks oi -Mr I’i'iiitngii/ji*-, , .'■■■ term In Id - recent lik-t eric fight again,! .Ur Hughes.