“PEEPS INTO SLUMDOM.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 113, 4 July 1911, Page 8

“PEEPS INTO SLUMDOM.”

AN IXT EIIEST 1X G LECTURE BY CITY MISSION WORK EE. At tlio Town Hall last night o.!is. Blamircs, wife of the Rev. E. 0. .15lorn ires, Wellington, and who has had experience of mission work in London, Leicester, and Dunedin, delivered a lecture under the title “Peeps Into Slumdom,” being some of her experiences in mission work in New Zealand. Mrs., Blamircs is an excellent speaker, and was listened to with interest by the large number present. The Mayor occupied t!io chair, and the Her. C. C. Harrison was also on the stage. Mr. Masters, in introducing the speaker, said -Mrs. Blamircs was carrying on her work at considerable inconvenience to herself. She was the wife of one of their beat Methodist ministers, but she sacrificed the comforts of home to enable her to do the work she had set her heart on. After the lecture a collection would be taken up, and he. desired his hearers'to remember that the missions were ■ much in need of funds to enable them to send workers into the city slums. Mrs. Blamircs said she felt sure tiie sympathies of her audience were with them in the work of sending people to look after the welfare of the unfortunate people in city slums. At the church service just previously she had been speaking of her work in England, but on the present occasion she desired to speak of experiences in Now Zealand, in the Old Land, of course, sin was very deep-rooted, and would take generations to obliterate; but she would speak of the misery existing in what somebody had called Hold’s Own Country. 'There should not be any poverty in a land of plenty , such as New Zealand was; but tnree-lifths of the poverty was caused by drink—perhaps it would be found teat the proportion was nine-tenths. Those who had never attended mission hall services could have no conception of the things which occurred there. One night sue had been interrupted during prayer by a burst, of hilarious laughter, and on subsequent investigation she had found that one of the boys present had taken r, rabbit from his packet and ‘ put it on the head of a bald man sitting Close by. On returning to New Zealand from England she had particularly noticed the drinking which went on among young men. She had seen a great number of lads drunk, and tliese formed the greater part of the audience at the mission hall. One Saturday night two men who were just drunk enough to bo merry were Indulging in a wrestle, such things being allowed in the hall in reason. Two other men in the nasty stage of drink came in and thinking a quarrel was being settled, attacked the two wrestlers. Mis. Blamircs got between the fighters, and while doing so was struck on the head. She was almost stunned, but kept her head and gave a long recitation in order to keep the room 'quiet. She wished she could toll her hearers of the misery sho had seen which was caused by drink. She was not speaking on behalf of the Temperance Party, but one could not deal with mission work without touching on the matter. She then related an incident of the conversion of a drunkard, who had illtreated his wife for eleven years. It had been thought necessary to have a deed of separation carried out, but after the husband had missed his wife for three months and had ceased drinking, they lived happily together again. But if drink was bad in men it was far worse in women—women

with grey hair. Mrs. Blamires told of a caso in which, after some difficulty, slip get a grey-headed woman to her home. The woman’s mother came to her and said her daughter must not be allowed inside or murder would result. It appeared that the woman had gone to iier brother’s place of business in a drunken condition and had disgraced him. Tire brother had thereupon proceeded to get drunk, and was then lying in the house waiting to punish his sister. Therefore, the woman had to be taken to the lock-up, though Mrs. Blamires found it distasteful to do so to a women old enough to ho her mother. Another case quoted was that of a woman who had previously bean in comfortable circumstances in Victoria, but who had been reduced to doing laundry work for a living, and who got drunk periodically. Mrs. Blamires gave it as her opinion that the people of the country should at once decide to stop the liquor traffic. Much work remained to bo done at the Wellington Mission Hall, which was endeavouring to uplift people and to turn souls to Christ. One of the regular attendants at the hall was a man who came sometimes with two socks, sometimes one, and sometimes none at all. He was the son of a millionaire. Another regular attendant was an old man who had previously turned up in a shabby and unclean manner. Ho had not turned to Christ, but the influence of the hall services had boon such that he had now spruced himself up, and was in the habit of being more cleanly. This was usually one of the first signs of returning to Christ. Mrs. Blamires said she was no longer a Sister, but she still had a Sister’s heart; and her heart throbbed when she saw so many men steeped in sin.- She and her husband were endeavouring to make the mission a work worthy of Methodism. She concluded by stating that she would ever pray that the time would soon come when all this struggling against evil would be a thing of the past.