THE DOLLAR BABY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 428, 10 February 1909, Page 3

THE DOLLAR BABY.

THE LATEST EXPERIMENT. ■All the civilised world over people are puzriing their brains over the problem of preventing the waste of infant Jifo, and at last the tide has reached lowa, uhero now the harassed senators are grappling with the question of raoo suicide. One remedy after another has been suggested, only to bo rejected by them as impracticable, and'at last m despair the fathers of the State have fallen back on the almighty dollar, and have determined nobly (states a cable message published yesterday morning) to pay a dollar for each baby. There is something very inspiriting in this fact. It is interesting to know exactly the value that the legislator of a State place on each citizen's life. Those who knon some-! thing of tho awful sacrifice of human life that takes place every year in the States through negligence on the railways alone those who know something of, the childelavery m the factories of cert-m States, may be surprised to find a human life valued even bo highly as a dollar. Four shillings and A tfcem ma - y , Beem a fanoy estimate. A mod httle pig'm New Zealand would cost ten shillings, and Mary's little lamb would fetch from twelve and six to fifteen shillings but here, where women have the franchise! T&V* ' aVo °T tho Domini °n we have Babies Aid Societies, it uould be a bold M P who would fix on 4s. 2d as a fair reward for the,mother who gives a now little citizen to the State. It will be interesting to sec i how tho experiment m lo*a works out and to learn wholher there are many parents Jho.claim the dollar. One feels sorry tor the coming children, who in their school'da™ BabiS!* hbkao ™ the "*»> of Dollar

To-day, again, we have a cablegram from America, that gives a further v? °L ftelr t2P s y-turvey standards of values. Theman,2Bauman,who has been convicted of swindling women out of £100,000 v«r w I s a 53 K haTe m7 <*" Europe and America, has just been sentenced to five years , imprisonment. In some btates imprisonment constitutes a ground for divorce, and it might be that the judge considered the man who was divorced fifty' times, was adequately punished, but the American rrazy divorce laws would hardly apply to his European marriage's, so'his sentence remains another injustice to the vote-Jess-woman. "" ' ; .11