The Unemployed.

Manawatu Herald, 2 June 1894, Page 3

The Unemployed.

+ y The Benevolent Society Trustees yesterday (Thursday) showed keen anxiety to be rid of their recent guests. It seems that there have been several free fights at the Home, that the " casuals " have fairly taken possession, comport themselves much as it pleases them, and use filthy language before the female inmates. The Master, as the Trustees put it, 11 v off his head " with the trouble of it, and it has been found necessary to organise the old men who form the permanent inmates into watches, to keep watch and ward through the night lest some careless or roy3tering casual should set fire to the building, or destroy pnblic property ; men are spending their cash in drink, and then falling back on the Home. The Chairman said that the watchers were having an anxious time of it, and must be relieved at once, as there were men at the Home now who would not hesitate to put a knife into any one. Mr Willeston said some of them were very respectable men, but some were awful , blackguards. The Chairman said that was so. Mr Lancaster did not see why these men should be allowed to go into the dining room while the women were having their meals and use filty language, as they were visiting the Home. It was decided to get rid of them as soon as possible, and get them to work on the Queen's Drive. The Hawke's Bay Herald tells this story of its looal unemployed :— A certain runholder in Hawke's Bay and his family are very fond of bis* ouits. The other day he sent to town and got up four cases of Fortune and Black's be3t manufacture. t Now, the station is on a line of inaiu road, and of late the owner has had to maintain a small army of swaggers. There wero so many the other evening that there was not bread enough for them. But the mistress of the house, sympathising with their hard lot, did not turn them away or put them off with mutton only. She Bent to them a large tin full of biscuits. Next day the irate runholder wes observed gazing at his gate, on wmfch was chalked, " Swaggers beware. Dog biscuit here ; no bead." Swaggers at that station now get a fixed ration of flour, sugar, and meat, and have to do their own cooking. The sub-oommittee of the Benevolent Society Trustees has made arrangement with the proprietor of the City Restaurant, Willis-street, to give the unemployed who have hitherto been sent to the Home meals and beds upon orders from the officers of the Society. No further " casuals " will be admitted to the Home or given meals there, and the 27 men who were in excees of the accommodation of the shelter shed were sent to the City Restaurant. Four others, who had misconducted themselves or refused to do the work allotted, were turned away.— Post.