WALTHAM ORPHANAGE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7940, 13 January 1906, Page 5

WALTHAM ORPHANAGE.

THE ENQUIRY. MORE. SQUALID EVIDENCE. AN UNINVITING PICTUKE. CIIKISTCLIURCO, January 12. A*- the Walt ham Orphanage enquiry to-day, Ada Wells, a member of the Charitable Aid Board, said that tho Matron carried out the worlc under tho dominating influence of the dominating member of the Board. She was not fitted to be a I matron. The children wore not trained mentally or 'physically as : should be the case. Tho cost of the maintenance of tho children wus Idoutlo what it should be. The ;j language of the children had shocked her. It savoured of Billingsgate. Nothing had been done for Qaeir recreation. The orphanage. kitchen was filthy dirty. Silence greeted her whenever she went, in the building. The bedrooms were poor, and the bedding in a bad conditon. There were no bath facilities and the children had to carry their own bath water to bath. The dresses of the ohildren were uukempt and inadeI quate. Frnuk Hammond was a I tuberculosis Subject, and sho'ild never have been beaten. She disI approved of the silence punishment. I She bad been yinable to find any proper inspection o the orpbahagd. She had not uov.surprised to hear the ohildren having "fits of misery." Ellon Attwood in particular always looked unhappy. Her eyes were affected ill some way, and she should have been under the care of an oculist. She was always . untidy, and always working in the kitchen. On her first night at the orphanage witness found the children liad their meals alone. She objected that she had never seen the table at the orphanage decently set out.