REAL POVERTY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2135, 1 June 1920, Page 2

REAL POVERTY.

HOW SOME PEOPLE IX NEW ZEALAND LIVE.

Auckland, Yesterday

While there are in Auckland some women fortunate enough to bo in a position where they are liable to be asked to sign (he charter of economy pledging themselves not to waste more than a ten-pound note on a costume, there are many more to whom, says the Star, such a sum would be wealth beyond I he dreams of avarice, and instead of being tlielimit for one gown, would probably be (he limit for a family’s clothing bill for a year. There is real poverty even in Auckland. Headers, no doubt, were shocked to read ,thc other day a case in Sydney in which a woman 20 years of age had eight children. Her husbanfl earned £3 17s lid a week, and she had to go out to work to keep (he home together. Sister Esther, a wellknown social worker in Auckland, says that if a deputation were arranged in Auckland it could show instances quite as glaring. She quoted the case of a young mother, thirty-four years of age! with nine children aged from thirteen years down to a few months, and the breadwinner earns £3 10s a week. Lent —that bug-boar of the poor — takes 11s (Id, and with the pittance that is left this iwoman has to feed and clothe a household of eleven. With blankets and mattresses at their present prices, (he poor cannot afford them, and some queer makeshifts have to be used already. Sister Esther has filled out 157 families with warm winter things. Rents hit the poor very hard, and this leads to a lot of overcrowding. In one house of six rooms, for instance, there are two families —one of a. fitther and mother and seven children, and the other- of a father and mother and four children. Sister Esther mentioned a fact which shows what a struggle some of the poor have to scrape through. “.Many of the men in large families that really can't make both ends meet have not had a new suit of clot lies since they were married,” she remarked.