WASHING AT SEA.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 133, 8 February 1915, Page 2

WASHING AT SEA.

Some time ago I accompanied an emigration, officer to Plymouth to watch the embarkation of three hundred women bound for Australia. The officer was anxious that the accommodation for the women should be in keeping with the regulations. Diving below, he liseovered that no provision had been made for- the morning wash. Interviewed. the captain, a red -whiskered savage, explained that the women could wash on deck. The (‘migration officer replied that women and girls consigned to.the Antipodes must arrive like civilised beings; for the skipper's proposal menat that the women emigrants would have to perform their morning' ablutions in the presence of the crew. The

captain was told that the ship could not leave port until tli£ required accomodation was provided. The fight between officer and skipper lasted two hours. In the end a gang of carpenters rushed aboard; screens and partitions were torn down and something resembling 300 washed emigrants arrived in Australia seven or eight weeks later.