PROTECT THE WORK-GIRLS.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 237, 28 March 1885, Page 2

PROTECT THE WORK-GIRLS.

I am constantly receiving written expostulations against the utter defiance of the law for the protection of women operatives, which is shown by a large proportion of the employers of female labour in Auckland. The thing is carried to an enormous extent lam sure, of my own knowledge. Saturg day after Saturday and night after night hundreds of poor girls are kept slavin« in stinking and badly - ventilated work-room?, just because the greed of gain of their employers won't allow them to engage sufficient hands to get through the work within decent hours. Letters come pouring in xipon me from poor pale lasses, who, in commm with everyone else in the North Island that does not belong to some money ring or other % swindling combination, look upon me as the, 1 redresser of wrongs, especially female wrongs (bless 'em ! — the females I mean). These girls tell tales of early to work and late to knock off, which makes them shirk food and causes a cough, cases which are enough to make the hair uprise and the life blood cooler run ; and if we were Sergeant Gamble's size we wouldn't have it done. We have now received a visit from a fair sweet thing, drooping like a parched pansy, who has unfolded her tale, of woe in such harrowing detail that we feel impelled to rush into the breach and "' claim protection for these sweet sisters of ours, who day by day and night by night are wearing away the roses from their cheeks and the health from their bodies that a few harpies may fatten on the proceeds of such unnatural and unhealthy labour. Supt. Thomson ought to see that Sergeant Gamble makes his rounds of all (not only a chosen, few) the work-rooms ; frequently and at uncertain intervals, and that | he compels strict obedience to the law.

THE COMING- ANGLO-BUSSIAN WAX. Though hostilities have not yet been actually declared between Britain and Russia, there seems no reason to doubt that the course of events is rapidly tending in that direction. . As appearance go, we may any day suddenly receive telegraphic advices of the despatch of British ironclad fleets to the Black Sea and Baltic, the advance of a column to anticipate a Russian seizure of Herat, and probably naval opera-%--fcions in the Persian Gulf. Under these circumstances no time should be lost in putting the principal ports of the colony in a condition of defence, in re-organising and increasing the volunteer army, and generally in adopting such precaittions as prudence and the available resources at our command may suggest. In this connection one of the very first steps should be to arm the colonial forces with more modern and improved weapons than those which they now possess. The Snyder may be a very effective weapon of ■ . its sort, but it is nowhere against the Martini-Henri or the rifles used by the ■ Russian infantry, one pattern of which is sighted up to 1400 yards. ISTor are the field guns with which the Volunteer Artillery are provided of sufficient calibre to match even the pieces that an ordinary Russian gunboat ■would be likely to carry. Regarding tho batteries, a Pukekohe correspondent, who evidently has had some experience in the mounting and handling of heavy ordnance, suggests that in fortifying the North Head tunnels and chambers should be built inside, so as to enable the men manning the battery to lay the guns in different directions, the face of the tunnel and chamber to be a few feet abeve high-water mark, by which means the Artillery would be sheltered from the enemy's fire, and would be in a position to do effective execution against a hostile ship.