“CUDDLING GIRLS.”

Taranaki Daily News, 24 October 1922, Page 5

“CUDDLING GIRLS.”

LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAV®. A PARSON’S TEARS. CHARGES POOH-POOHED. Melbourne, Oct. 12. That stewards were too busy cuddling girls on the deck to attend to their duties was one of the many charges laid by a clergyman who travelled by the Commonwealth liner Moreton Bay on her recent trip to Australia. So serious were the charges made that the management ordered an inquiry, ami an official report was issued last night. The clergyman asserted among other things, that not more than six passengers were provided with water with which to wash in their cabins; that after a few days everybody on board had a partner, and that there was much flirting; that girls had a habit of rushing into the officers’ cabins; that on one occasion his (thr clergyman’s) partner in a deck game had disappeared, and he found her in an officer’e cabin too full of ginger beer to play again; that in the tropics a passenger changed into his pyjamas on deck in front of several women.

The report on these charges either minimises or entirely discounts them, and further suggests that the complainant was not quite as popular as he might have been with the ship’s company. One of the ship’s officers said that the parson was ostracised by 90 per cent, of those on hoard. He is alleged to have made objectionable remarks against certain officers during the Sunday service, and to have said’things calculated to cause dissatisfaction between the crew and the officers. The charges of lax conduct as between the sexes were not sustained, and it is stated that the pyjama man’s easy-go-ing methods were stopped as soon as