THE DOSS HOUSE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 530, 13 May 1933, Page 4

THE DOSS HOUSE

ITS INHABlTANts MEN IN SELARCH OF rnte FROM N.Z. AN0 ABROAD ' NORTH CAPE TO BLUpp Very curious and interesting ittt "Doss-House Book" kept in an 3 in Rotorua where the homelesstr ers sign their names in requ^t ia night's lodging and one may J ulate long on the tales that lie Jy the scrawled signatures. Men from all the seven seasL^ I spent a night there and passeU | their way but unfortunately / mainly New Zealanders and yJ ones at that whose Maines fiU ji pages. ® Here is one entry. "JohnX-^jy William X brothers, aged2(U 21, out of work from the Salvafc Army hostel in Auckland, south." One can picture the rafe hopeless feeling of those two y03l brothers on the threshold of lifeJ ■demned to trudge the roads seete for the joh -that doesn't come andt ' work that is non-existent. Waiiti , that they - went to school (for «

writing is neat land the characta well-formed) and received trair« for the business of life. Some/ does not seem right that these yq native-born colonists should heji duced to this. From Bow Bells Then there is another. JohnYborn in London and come out toi Land of Promise looking for a j -which would~take him away from ti smoke and hardships of the world metropolis. He too, has seen visix and has been disappointed. Only j young mlan, this, still under tW and tramping the country penni]^ But not all are New Zealanders as Englishmen, as their names sta There is a big prop'ortion of nae which are Irish but curiously enotj hardly any Scots. One has a pathtS ring: "Brian O'H , Ireland, tbj months in N.Z." What h'eartbumisj lie in that hrief entry? New Zealai has given a cool reception to this sj of the Emerald Isle for shehasu enough work to go round for hercs native born. Fmom Hindustan Then there is the entry inUrdai a native of India; apparently he d cided to sign his name in the ohai acters of his own, not his adopte land. The entry has against it a bril note "Written in Arabic" but thati not the language. Truly it is aa ra usual thing tO' come across a scrtt of this type in a far-off Jand, It rare to hear of a Hindu or Chinama out of work and rarer still to (M lacrosg one of th'enl in a doss hoai Passed the Century Mark \ This doss house has been well pa ronised thor^gh pjerlte-ps one cei hardly call it popular, for since jani ary 1 there have been 105 men ea] ed there for the night. In Janna there were 23-, in February 20 foui beds and the number rose in Mai! to 26, dropped in April to 23, and? rea.dy up to May 11, there havele 13 homeless men accommodated ti month. The towns they come from rei like a New Zealand directory, Wai roa, Gisborne, Turua, Wellingto Waimate, Whangarei, Auckland, U nui, Masterton, Nelson and Mai borough, and even from sunnyNi South Wales, one man hails, "Ships that pass in the night" ti have rested one hrief spell on thi journey in search of the elusive j(