IN CITY SLUMS.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 November 1918, Page 5

IN CITY SLUMS.

STRUGGLE AGAINST POVERTY.

(Auckland * 'Herald.”)

The investigations made by the voluntary workers during the last few weeks have revealed conditions never before brought with such terrible force before the community. Social workers and many others have known the circumstances surrounding the lives of the poor, and the evils calling for remedy in the very heart of the city, but the community has been largely ignorant of certain facts. The present epidemic end widespread distress have now proclaimed conditions that can no longer bo ignored. Much of the distress has undoubtedly been caused by neglect, thriftlessncss, and sheer ignorance on the part of the people themselves, but the indisputable fact remains that the housing conditions in certain parts of Auckland are a crying disgrace to the city, and a menace to the moral land physical welfare of the whole community. On every side, among the voluntary workers, who have for the first time entered these hovels, and among the social workers who have known of them, and proclaimed them vainly for years past, are heard to-day scathing denunciation of the owners, SOME SORDID SIGHTS.

A tour of one of the worst districts taken yesterday disclosed among many other unsavoury sights, on a main thoroughfare, a row of tumble-down, dilapidated houses full of vermin, stale with the dirt of years, with "to lot” signs flaunting from the broken windows. .Inst opposite were fish, bakery, and fruit shops, and directly behind them ian unsightly collection of ■rutting wooden buildings, tumbledown sheds, stables, thick with flies and yards full of rank growth and .all kinds of indiscriminate rubbish. That is one spot.

At the top of another very wcllknown street leading off Queen Street, is a cluster of hovels which must have been built nearly half a century ago. To-day they are unfit for human ‘habitation; in wet weather, the wa-tef streams in through countless cracks, and'the whole surroundings arc sordid in the extreme. Yet landlords are'extracting rent for, such places, devoid of any of the ordinary conveniences of civilised dwellings. "If I had my wav,” said a well-known social workor, wth- whom the tour was taken, "the landlords'!)! the'se houses would be sent to gaol and deprived of all citizen rights, for by tolerating such conditions as these, they prove themselves wholly unworthy of the name of citizen.'” ’ ... ... THE ROOT OF POVERTY. Some interesting opinions as to the cause of much of the poverty revealed lately were given by the social workers "Much of it is duo to sheer inability to meet the needs of a large family on a wage of perhaps £3, or ia. little more, a week. After : 15s or £1 a week has been paid for rent, there is very little left for feeding, clothing, doctoring, and incidental expenses .of a family of seven or eight, for wo all know it is this class that rciars the largest families. It is a hard fight in these days, and if the mother has no real idea of thrift, and many of them have not, things go from bad to worse. ’ ’ Another contributory cause was stated to bo the insatiable craving for amusement. In one family six were

struggling along on £2 15s a week; the mother admitted that they spent 5s j a week on entertainments. This seems | a pathetically small sum, but under j such conditions, was really an impor- j taut factor in expenditure, "The j trouble is, there is no longer any desire for homo-life," ’said one worker. "One does not wonder at it cither, when one considers the homes they are forced to live in, but still, this

constant craving for excitement of any kind, is not a good thing, and is showing strongly in the young people already.’’ In quite a number of instances it was stated there was no effort toward home life at all; iall meals were taken out, and the place, grown dirty and neglected, only used as a place to sleep in.”