OLD WOMAN'S PITIABLE FATE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 90, 25 July 1910, Page 8

OLD WOMAN'S PITIABLE FATE

DEATH AMIDST FILTH. EXTRAORDINARY STORY FROM CHRISTCHURCH. 11/ Telegraph.-—Press Association. Christchurcn, duly 22. Georgina Ambrose, wkose age is given at anything between seventy ami eignty, died last night at her home in Hill's road, Marshlands, under circumstances which were as extraordinary as tuey were pitiable. The building she eal.ed her home was a corrugated iron shanty, divided into two compartments, ana occupying a fairly large section. Last night Constable Smith, who is stationed at St. Albans, received a message tnat the old woman was dying. On going to her place, he saw that the woman was very ill, and he sent for a doctor, jjr. Withers responded to the message, but shortly after he arrived the old woman breathed her last. She was an oid age pensioner, and was well known by sight to many people in the city by the nickname of "Mother Dick." She was always pushing a dilapidated perambulator, in which she stowed away the trifles she picked up or which were given to her. Her earlier career, is not definitely known, but it is believed that she was on the goldfields, both in Australia and New Zealand. She was not. married, but it is believed that she was the uunt oi a girt whose tragic death provided Melbourne with a sensation a few years back. The girl was murdered and dismembered, the remains packed in a trunk, and thrown into the Yarra. SHOCKING REVELATIONS. A News reporter who visited the old woman's shanty to-day found that the conditions under which the woman had been living were shocking in the extreme. The place was almost inconceivably filthy. It is difficult to beneve such an existence possible in these days of inspection and compulsory sanitation. The approach to the house lay through a water-logged area, the worst portions of which were spanned with logs, boards and an old ladder. Dead ducks lay about in melancholy profusion, adding to the general tone of desolation. The backyard was littered with the oddest collection of articles one could imagine. [Three old perambulators of the heavy [ iron type were the most noticeable items in the collection; then there were boxes, I botflies, bags, jars, pots and pans, fowls dead and alive, and a black dog of nondescript breed. Lifting the wooden I boxes an extraordinary ■ discovery came Ito light. The old woman had used them as meat and vegetable safes. Under one she had placed some bacon, simply laying it on the filthy ground, and then turning the box over it. Under another box there was a vegetable marrow and some onions. The backyard was in an indescribably filthy condition. Fowls—- ; and there must have been about a hundred of them—rioted about in the filth, and the scene may be left to the imagination. At the door lay the body of a deceased fowl, the smell from which stridently proclaimed that the late summons for the unfortunate bird had been delivered some weeks ago. Opening the door an astonishing sight met the eye. The room was waist deep with a weird collection of old clothes, bags, parcels, sacks, hats, boots and other things the old woman had got possession of. She seems to have been obessed with a mama for old clothes and other trifles. In one corner was a small stove, where the old woman is presumed to have done her cooking. It was almost inaccessible over the heap of goods. To make the confusion worse, the fowls had been the old woman's companions. The smell! from the place* was nauseating. • The other room, hi -which the old woman breathed her last, was on a par with the one just described. A few pint pew-j ters hung on the wall. Looking through the hffip of stuff, one came on some peculiar things. There was an old alarm clock, a grimy book of Gulliver's Travels, biscuit tins, some brooches, hats, bags find hoots galore. CHAMBER OF HORRORS. The fowlhouse was another chamber! of horrors. Dead hens lay there rotting and smelling in a horrible manner. The eve encountered rubbish and filth whenever it turned. The old woman had no friends, hut the neighbors rrave her charitable assistance. She did not encourage callers, and was vow irritable vhnn anvone <•;„■,„. *iip n«ivii.n«ns i,n.W which she v,-0., ..u ...■„.! tr, i:,- 0 « nil «tit„u nothing '•l'ort nf n Rrfpvln'. At nn inone=t in ti 1P ho,lv, a veWliet of ileatli fi'niri senile ileeav was returned, states a Press Association telegram.