PASSING NOTES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5503, 20 November 1929, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

Cr. P. E. Brenan in bringing up at the last Borough Council meeting the fact that where some water-pipes had been laid along Belmont Road a spot opposite Messrs Hare Bros, was very boggy, added considerately : “Half a yard of fine metal would save the ladies’ stockings a great deal.” Visibly affeeted and moved by the doughty councillor’s gallantry, the city fathers decided to have the offending mud attended to forthwith. If the ladies were not so much in the habit of washing their hosiery themselves there might be a growl from our local laundryman about government interference in business. $ * * * Mr C. M. Paish, His Majesty’s Tirade Commissioner in New Zealand, when speaking at the commerce train reception in Paeroa’on Saturday of how well he and the United States of America and Canadian Trade Commissioners got on together, mentioned that the three of them occupied the same cabin on the train. But, added Mr Paish, Mr Collins, the secretary of the Department of Commerce and Industries, occupied the top bunk to watch over them. • * * * Addressing the meeting later, Mr C. J. Mackenzie, assistant engineer-in-' chief, Public Works Department, referring to the Paeroa-Pokeno railway, said that if the Government said “go” the department would “go”-—the department would find the men to do the job. The Public Works Department took their orders and carried them out, irrespective of what they thought of them. On the same subject Mr D. Rodie, commercial manager of the N.Z. Railways, said he had been with a previous inspecting party on the PaeroaPokeno railway. His report and that of his fellow officers had been submitted to the general manager and dealt with by the Government. “I can’t tell you any more,” concluded Mr Rodie. The 1929 commerce train called to mind sleeping accommodation on trains in China to one of the visitors. There passengers sleep one or two in a coupe in luxuriously comfortable brass bedsteads, with no one overhead. In the coupe is a wash-basin with hot and cold water, an easy chair, and a minute wardroom. Over the wash hand-basin is a mirror, and as well as the ordinary lights are individual reading lights over the beds. A bell-push is handy in the wall beside each bed, and a call a “boy” answers instantly. In the bathrooms hot and cold showers are provided. And this type of sleeping accommodation is not alone for transSiberian or long-distance waggon “lits de luxe,” but on short runs as ’well. v • • • A recent cablegram states that Mr Blakeley, Australian Minister of Home Affairs, referring to a report that a troupe of girls from Australia or New Zealand contemplated engagement as dancers to tour the Far East, warns the young women to be extremely careful before accepting offers. The conditions under which they have to perform are frequently undesirable and the salaries are insufficient to meet expenses. This warning should be broadcast to the four quarters of New Zealand, and taken most serious heed of. No one knows the number of unfortunate Australian and New Zealand girls who have been stranded in the Orient by third-rate theatrical companies which have gone bankrupt, leaving them, penniless, to their own resources. In the heart of Chinese cities, and far in the interior of the country, one comes across these pitiable figures, married, according to native rites, to w’ealthy Chinese — forced into these unnatural unions through the thought of starvation, or worse. Hundreds of miles, in many cases, from another white person, these girls eventually drag out their lives in indescribable misery. At first they are happy enough, for the Chinese in their innate kindness and courtesy are good to them ; but as time goes on the husband almost invariably finds something of more interest than the novelty of a white wife, and the poor girl from under the Southern Cross is left to the none too, tender mercies of the “number one” wife, who has been waiting for a chance of revenge on the one who even temporarily usurped her place. Then follows drudgery, the meanest of household duties, and all the taunts and insults possible heaped on the white wife’s head. Imprisoned in the house, with the right to walk abroad denied, the life of the forlorn little white girl generally ends in drugs and suicide. This is not fancy or hearsay. It is truth, the stark, naked truth, written by one who has seen at least twelve of these white women, mostly Australian, in the various stages of this living death.