CONTROL OF CHILDREN.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 973, 20 August 1903, Page 3

CONTROL OF CHILDREN.

DUTY OF THE STATE.

(Per Press Association.) Wellington, last night,

A deputation from Ohrißtohurch, as representatives of the Children’s Aid Society, waited on the Premier to-day. The questions of classifying inmates of public insti tutions, methods of dealing with defective children, and the necessity for an altera in the Criminal Code were, brought forward. At present children were being committed to Burnham whose only crime was their poverty. These unfortunates had to mingle with thoso who had committed oriminal offences. It was suggested that local councils, to be composed largely of women, should bo appointed to control children under the guardianship of the State. It was also asked that indiscriminate sentences' should not be passed on those men convicted of certain offences on women and children. The Premier, in the course of his reply, said the classification of inmates of industrial institutions was not yet completed, but would be as soon as the new home at Levin was finished. He agreed that only children tainted with criminal instinct should be committed to the Burnham Home. The State had now many thousands of children under its control, and what the deputation had urged in regard to their detention in homes, and the supervision and administration of bodies controlling them, would receive careful attention.