Prison Houses of Dunedin's Slums

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 22, 7 December 1934, Page 19

Prison Houses of Dunedin's Slums

A Mother and Her Children In A Two-Roomed Hovel in Athol. Place ! -Starvation While "Dick" Seddon Talked of "God’s Own Country"-"Children of the Poor," a N.Z. Slum Story.

LUMS! Yes, slums in a country scarcely a century old! Women and children living their lives in hovels-Auckland with its area of squalor and poverty in the neighluourhood of Freeman’s Bay, Wellingten with its misery paraded in the very shadow of the new National Art Gallery, Christchurch with its urchins and prematurely-aged women in the vicinity of Madras Street and the railway station, Dunedin with its poverty iu those places mentioned in New Zealand’s first slum story, "Children of the Poor." This book (which Bernard Shaw compares favourably with Lionel Gritton’s remarkable story, "Hunger and Love’-the book that was meat too strong for 18 of London’s publishers) Was sent to the publishers, T. Werner Laurie, Limited, by Upton Sinclair, and is the work of a man who is well-known in New Zealand affairs to-day-it is even said that he sits in the Tlouse of Representatives. But in the meantime, despite Bernard Shaw’s personal plea to him to come out into the open, he prefers to remain anonymous, "Children of the Poor" is dedicated to "daughters of the poor; to errant brats and guttersnipes; to eaters of left-overs, the wearers of cast-offs; to slaves of the wash-tub and scrub-brush, whose children, nevertheless, go to hell; to teachers who adopt, through compulsion or desire, the methods of the barrack square; to juvenile culprits fleeine from the inescapable hand ef the law, sometimes called justice; te that world of superior persons whose teeth have never been sharpened by deprivation, whose sensibilities have never quivered from the shame of their poverty; in particular, to those whose birth-inexcusable audacitymay have offended against Holy Law, whose life, against man’s. This story of the gutter." The book takes one back to the beginning of the century when things were far from easy in New Zealand. The ‘population had grown, but not the markets; there was plenty of unemployment put no such thin as sustenance; there were charitable organisations presided over by flint-eyed women who believed that the poor should be kept "where they belonged"; there was exploitation of labour, and women were kept over wash-tubs and: at. fioor-scrubbing for a few pence a day. Slums had already sprung into existence to house the families who knew nothing but left-overs and cast-offs-and all this in a country that "Dick" Seddon was describing at the time as "God’s Own Country." The author conjures up a picture of iis first memories of Dunedin: Ijwas born in Athol Place, between Hanover and St, Andrew Streets, on Hallowe’en .. The house consisted of two rooms a jdetached lavatory, It still exists, but I never linger when T pass Memory of the poverty in this house chills ‘my spine, { Every "brick tells of hunger and

of grinding poverty .... Every morning there came a parade of prisoners from the city gaol, marching to labour:on a piece of Government land at the north end of the city .... In Athol Place our :rison house ‘was our poverty . ... We were fed largely on left-overs. Piedishes containing the remnant of some sweet, bones-with some meat still adhering, were given to my mother, who brought them home in paper

EARRR RARER RRR RRR RRR ARR RRR RRR parcels jor wrapped in a shawl. Stale scones, cold, mashed potatoes, odd jugs of: soup, all came to our belli*s from the tables of the privileged . All of which indicates that, although was one of the most prosperous and God-fearing cities in the new and rich country of New Zealand, there was poverty in the land and that we were poor even amid ‘poverty. Albany Porcello (for so the writer calls himself in this story) never knew his father,-‘nor did his mother ever mention him. He had a sister, Rose, who was two years older than himself, and a younger brother, Douglas. His mother spent her days washing and scrubbing, and her children had to fend for themSelves almost from the cradle. But she was as good a mother as she could be.. she toiled her life away in a grim struggle to keep her pitiful little home together. That she failed was not her fault . . . circumstances and poverty made her daughter a Chinaman’s whore at the age of 11, and sent this child to her grave before she was out of her teens,-and the same conditions sent young Albany to Burnham when he was scarcely 14 years old. ; Perhaps the happiest time in this child’s unhappy boyhood was the period he spent with his maternal grand-par-ents -at Riversdale, tliat smiall village

set on a rolling plain some miles from Dunedin. Here life was happy enough, marred only by the drunken outbursts of his grandmother, a lovable soul, despite her weaknesses... "Puir old Alice MacDonald, God bless her erring soul," if one may use that phrase for its sentimental wichness rather than to assert one’s faith. Dear old Alice’ MacDonald, her craving made away with the eash, the furniture, ‘the home, her. children’ s future, and it whetted her husband’s roving easily destroying his ambition. Periodically, she had bouts wf sottish drunkenness, Her habits reduced the home to penury, her children to despair, caused her husband yzto become qa wanderer drifting from job to job, always forgiving and pitching a tent anew with the promise of his wifes ;reformation, a promise and penitennce inevitably followed by a fresh outbreak. But in her sobriety Alice MacDonald vas a good wife and a loving grandwother to Albany-Big Mother, be ealled her. She taught him the folk songs of her own loved Scotland, sha teld, him of the miracles of. Nature, sbe brought to this starved sluinchild’s spirit something that it would never have found in the squalid hove: in Athol Place. But, in a night, life ut Riversdale fell to pieces, Alice MacDonald plunged the household so helplessly into debt in her craving for liquor, that there was nothing left to do but to pack bags and baggage and leave. And so back to his mother was voung Albany sent. Soon after this an event occurred which was to set the faces of Dunedin’s righteous more than ever against the Porcello family. A baby was corn, a girl, and although the children were delighted with this new playching, people talked, for Mrs. Porcello was known as a widow. Albany Porcello recalls a Sunday School incident: A boy came to me at Sunday School and took me aside with triumph in his face. fwell I remember, for the incident threw me into internal chaos. "TJ want to show you a verse in the. Bible." I looked and read. "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of ithe Lord." ; "What does it mean?" "Tt means that your sister will: go to hell," The sister dies-it was possibly more merciful for the little mite-and Albany is thrown into a state of mental anguish at the thought of the Old Testament’s decree. He gets a job as i newspaper runner, but he filches 2 few pence, and is sacked. He takes tc stealing wood and coal to keep a handful of fire burning through the winter. He gets a job in’ a_ boot-shop-and loses it again. He is emp.oyed in a paper factory, and is happy. But his sister’s life-‘Is Rose Porcello your sister?’-obtrudes, and tLe cruel laughter of the men wh? have sought her favours becomes ad much’ for him and’ he leaves. eauught steazing old. metal from a face tory. and’ is’ brought before. the court. (Continued on page 50.)

Prison Houses of Dunedin’s Slums

(Continued from page 19.) He is whipped, and placed under the ° care’ of the police chaplain, a sadistic homosexualist. Again he is in trouble, and the book ends with his transfer to "Surnham. "Children of the Poor" is a tragedy ; lot the tragedy of the Porcello family. -.

but the tragedy of a thousand New Zealand families. Here. in a land where green fields roll down to blue s€as, where mountain and’ river call. there is grinding poverty-children living their lives in some sunless slum, women with grey faces toiling for scraps of food and old clothes. And sO We prattle on about "our civilisaton !" "Children of the Poor." Anonymous, T. Werner Laurie. Our copy from the publishers, —

JF you scorch an article when iron: . ing, you can remove the discolouration by placing the article between the folds of a wet turkish towel and steaming it for a minute or so. If not removed the first time, repeat the process. ; ; * % * USLIN sheets and pillowcases, too old to use, cut in ‘squares ‘and hemmed,. make splendid window polishers to be used after windows have been cleaned with Ammonia water.