BOOZY BESSIE.

NZ Truth, Issue 84, 26 January 1907, Page 6

BOOZY BESSIE.

A Horrific Object-lesson. There J are two., definitions/ '.;'■ of .y- -the term "a woman of pleasure.'' .Otip means a worldly wise woman , who lives for love, and dress, and' balls and theatres, and notable Junctions where the multitude .eathereth, "... and* the other infers a woman of the, town, otherwise a harlot who pros-:: titutes her body for -gain-.' Kut the pleasure that, most 'of /her' gets out of such a. horrid existence, to judge from the appearance of the vast majority 'of the Christchurch sisters of the pavement, would, seem to be of a negative .character. In no other centre of the .colony are there ' to be seen such badly l dressed, > debauched arid dissipated women of the town as there niay be seen m Ghristchurch. They are appallingly dirty, disagreeable, to look* at,' smell oi stale beer and other hog/wash, look as if they slept i<h their ;clothes. which are generally, creased', and even the lowest, kind ' of . man might be expected, on the score of cleanliness alone, "to treat them with loathing and contempt. Yet these degraded females make a. living- somehow when they are not m. gaol. 'Drunken men from the country are generally thoir marks and they are m clover until the ob^ fuscated person sobers up .sufficiently to . notice ■ the land of petticoat ho has been, dallying' with.' Then he' pets quite sober immediately and streaks out for the horizon. A repellant creature named Bessie Kelleher, whose face would divert a streak of lightning from its course, and. who is a veritable object lesson for those who think of treading the path of female vice, came into the "hands of the police a°:ain the other day: She had been found sleepin the enclosed yard of Mrs Barry, of Stafford-street, at four o'clock m the morning when the cocks were commencing to crow dlnd the sparrows beginning to twitter, and she was boobcd. As she had been previously convicted, of being an idle and disorderly person ; Bessie was charged with being a cashless rogue and vag, and admitted the soft impeachment*. The • wretched ■ woman wanted' "*l;o'\ enter Mount" Majrdaten Home; she had previously been m the ' Samaritan Home, but that . did her no good. Her wish was granted, but she will have to stay' witlc the nuns a twelvemonth. '