Charitable Aid misapplied. A Horrible Den in Grey-street.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 156, 12 June 1886, Page 4

Charitable Aid misapplied. A Horrible Den in Grey-street.

Auckland, June 5. Sergeant Pratt applied, at the Police Court this morning to have three children committed to the Industrial Homes. Their names were John Albert Austin (11), Mary Harriet Austin (9). and Christina Winnifred Austin (4). Detective Edward Hughes deposed that the children named resided in a common brothel in Adams's right-of-way, off Greystreet. They were eadly neglected by their mother. Agnes Austins, who was a drunken prostitute. Thehousewasathree roomedone in which the following females resided regularly : — Agnes Augtin senior and infant, Agnes Austin junior, Jane Campbell, and Theresa King, and onanaverage half-a-dozen men. The men and women all slept on the floor, and there w as notn ot sufficient bedel othes in the house to make a bed for one person, the only furniture in the house being a box and four-post bed, the property of one of the girls. The house was stinking and dirty. The mothor was in receipt of Government rations, and he felt certain that the rations were eaten by the other , occupants of the house* The place was simply a den of prostitutes. On two occasions when he visited the house ho could find no food, and at another time he found very little food. He believed that the children should be committed to the Industrial School. Defective Walker deposed that he found the children on a bundle of rags huddled together, totally without food. Sergeant Edward Smith, Inspector under the Industrial Schools' Act, also gaye evidence. He considered the children lit subjects to be committed to the Industrial School under Section 16, Subsection 14 of the Industrial Schools' Act, 1882. His Worship accordingly committed the children to the Homes as applied for.