ASIATICS' DWELLINGS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1922, Page 2

ASIATICS' DWELLINGS.

WELLINGTON INSPECTION.

AVERSION TO FRItSH AIR. ) FILTH AND UGLINESS. A Civic League party that on Thursday morning visited some of the slums of Wellington learned little for itself about the morals of the quarter; but it saw some filth and ugliness, and sampled abominable odors, says a Wellington paper. The first call is on Hindus. Sanitary officers from the City Council and the Haith Department, who are the ciceroni of the party, out a ramshackle two-storeyed dwelling with closed windows and a deserted look. A narrow passage runs from the high gate to the back 'door, and along this passage troop the officials, the league members and a reporter. Bottles are piled high in the back yard, but there is no garbage lying about. The occupants o-f the house, are summoned to open the door, and the inspection commences. The walls are hung with tattered, fifthy paper; the f->or is dirty; the staircase narrow, dark, dismal, and unswept; the bedrooms upstairs repulsively grimy and untidy. Mere trifles, all these things; what really appals is the fetid, nausegt; ina atmosphere. The smoke of cigarettes, the effluvium of neglected garments, but above all the stale, stuffy odor of curry have conspired to render the air around almost unbreathafole. Yet the inhabitants seem quite at home in it. The principal tenant ,is still m bed. Neither he nor his confreres are much perturbed by the intrusion.- T^ ie y give, ii' a docile manner, such information as is asked; and accept phlegmatically the order to open the windows, and the parting injunction to see. that the broom arid the scrubbing brush, are promptly pressed into ( service. DINGY LITTLE 'COOP. In the house opposite, things are much the same. The building is in a terrible state of disrepair and a long succession of curry-seasoned meals is recorded in the unchanged air. Three beds of sorts are found in a dingy little coop eight feet by nine. Again the orders for scrubbing and airing; but here the broom has actually been 1 at work! There is always time to make some little change when you know that your neighbors have the inspectors in. Next on the list, another Hindu house, much cleaner than the previous two. No one at home. A house used as a Hindu fruit store is found passably, if not scrupulously clean. A recent warning to the users has had its effect. There is nothing particularly shocking in what has been seen. Much greater squalor could easily be imagined. But what scope there is for a soap and 'water revolution, and a fresh-air campaign is some of these places! Only one sample of the. actual living quarters of the Chinese is visited. By a. remarkable coincidence, two young Chinamen are sweeping the only two bedrooms into which the party peeps. The rooms are situated in the upper storey of a fairly large house. They are obviously not very badly kept, and the air in them is fresh. Constant pressure from the sanitary officials has taught the Chinese that it is possible to open a window here and there without fa-tal results. A weekly floor-wash-ing has been made compulsory, and the benefits of this compulsion are plainly .to be seen. A QUIET GAME. Downstairs, a middle-aged Chinaman of affable demeanour is interrogated bn the subject of pakapoo. He smiles blandly.' “Pakapoo? Oh, that has been stopped. Can’t get any tickets now!” He looks up at his questioners as innocently as a child, and answers pleasantly," in lucid English. One’s eyes wander over to a corner where a pile of dominoes adorns the rush matting on a table. There are eight or nine Chinamen about, the place. They have the air, for the most part, of lacking occupation for the moment. Probably the arrival of the visitors has interrupted a quiet little game —of dominoes. A Chinese restaurant, with its quaint chopsticks and rice-bowls, was inspected. Its general appearance was passable. Like the Hindus, the Chinese hid the resentment they may have felt against the white men who came to pry and stare. They gave their unbidden guests a courteous good-day and a slily humorous smile.