A formal portrait of Ettie Rout (in the middle without a hat) and the first group of her New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood to go overseas. Their uniforms were long blue-print dresses with white aprons and panama hats. Eileen Neilson is at the far right, back row. Marion Higgens and Agnes Kerr (with glasses) are on either side of Ettie Rout. Dora Murch is at right, front row. Emily Leggatt is behind Ettie Rout, third from left, back row. Ada Ballintine is third from right, back row. Taken by Stanley Polkinghorne Andrew in October 1915.

June 1918

We have perused the various pamphlets issued by this Club, and note that it has been established first at Hornchurch, and is owned in trust for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force by Miss E. A. Rout, Hon. Sec. New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood. It is established with the approval of the Commandment of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the United Kingdom, and its establishment announced in New Zealand Expeditionary Force Orders. One of its alleged objects is to preserve the social controls on which civilisation rests. All orders sent in by post are to be addressed to the Club, High Street, Hornchurch, Essex. Co-operation in this effort is requested for the men’s own sake and for the sake of the New Zealand nation. The capsules advertised are said to be protective both against gonorrhoea and syphilis if used before connection; if used after connection they are protective only against syphilis.

The Club will provide all the equipment necessary for a premeditated whoring expedition. One of the printed injunctions reads: “Be clean and go with clean people, and you will avoid disease. Cleanliness prevents disease. If you follow the foregoing directions you will save yourself and others from much pain, sickness, and expense, and help to win the war.” We do not propose, on the ground of decency to quote further from the pornographer who writes the advertising literature of the Club. It is salacious enough for the taste of the most abandoned sensualist. We do not object to medical prophylaxis after exposure to venereal infection has been incurred, but we deny the right of the promoters of this Club, even under the sanction of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force authorities in England, to lead the sons of respectable parents in New Zealand into ways of venery. It is high time that official sanction for pimps and panders should cease. We have heard a good deal of late of autocracy and democracy. Heaven preserve us from a pornocracy!

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