THE PROPOSED FOUNDLINGWARD

Evening Star, Issue 3747, 25 February 1875, Page 3

THE PROPOSED FOUNDLINGWARD

(From the Poet.) The Rev. Dr Stuart opposed the motion for the establishment of a foundling ward in connection with the Benevolent Institution on moral grounds, because making provision for the care and nurture of illegitimate children would encourage immorality and illegitimacy. Dr Stuart is ordinarilya sensible man, of reasonably liberal views, and certainly one of the last wearers of the cloth in Otago from whom we should have expected ridiculous arguments of this kind. Dr Stuart would apparently desire to usurp the divine prerogative of visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. He would hand the miserable infants of sin over to the tender mercies of the baby farmer, rather than provide means for their proper nurture during infancy and their after training into useful members of society. We have no patience with such illiberality, such cant. It is but too true probably, as Archdeacon Edwards said, that illegitimacy is on the increase, and that baby farming is rearing its horrid head. Both are natural results of the increase of our population and the manner in which it is increased by immigration. . . . It is to be hoped that the good sense of the people of Dunedin will assert itself in this matter, and that the Foundling Hospital asked for will be established, There can be little douH that it is wanted. The number of illegitimate births in this Colony every year is large. The majority of the mothers are girls who have to depend on their own labor for their livelihood. If their child lives, they have to farm it out, and the experience of other countries shows how such children are generally treated. The evils of baby farming could scarcely in this Colony become so great as in more populous communities, but as population increases here they will certainly become greater. Children thus brought up, if they manage to live at all, are pretty sure to grow up uneducated, uncared for, and to ultimately swell the ranks of the criminal classes. In every respect it is desirable that some provision should be made for the care and education of those miserable little waifs of humanity.