HOME FOR GIRLS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 123, 1 April 1879, Page 2

HOME FOR GIRLS.

The great want of a home for girls who are without parents or friends must have struck everyone who is at all acquainted with the circumstances of the large body of girls who are employed in various branches of business in the city. Their wages, as a rule, are small, and they are often compelled, on that account, to accept very inferior lodgings, without any pretensions to the comforts of home. A movement has now been inaugurated to establish some suitable institution on the plan of those which haze been worked so successfully in England. Miss Laura Smith, who has taken a deep interest in similar institutions in London, and has a thorough knowledge of the system o,f management, is now engaged with Mrs Power in the philanthropic work, and have succeeded in exciting very considerable interest in the movement. It is proposed to take a spacious building in the city with accommodation for boarding twelve girls to begin with, ample space for luncheon rooms, where girls employed during the day may obtain refreshments on the lowest possiblo scale without profit, a good assembly room or social Iwll where girls both resident and nonresident may spend the evening with music and reading, and accommodation for the classes which it is proposed to establish in connection with the institution. A certain number of girls required for carrying on the institution would be taken in and properly trained as domestic servants. The Young Women's Christian Association, Dunedin, formed with similar objects and after the same design, has proved a great success, and is the means of supplying a great want in that city. We have 110 doubt that in the able hands which have undertaken it, the Auckland institution will not be one whit behind. It is believed chat L 250 will be suflicient to start the institution, and that afterwards it will become self-supporting. Subscriptions may be sent to Colonel Haultain, the Treasurer, to either of the ladies named, or to this office.