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Kumara Times, Issue 437, 19 February 1878, Page 2

At the great Temperance demonstration in Dunedin on Sunday, Father Henneberry, we learn by telegram, stated that intheTJnited States there were annually four million cases of infanticide. This was endorsed by Bishop Moran, who estimated the number at a million more. The announcement appears to have taken the unco guid fellow-citizens of a Proudfoot and a Mrs Reid by surprise, for our correspbndent adds that “it is exciting much comment, and is regarded as a most extraordinary hallucination.’' Those intimately acquainted with the under-currant of social life in the great cities of the United States will, however, at once understand to what Father Henneberry and Bishop Moran referred. The mftrital relationship is there framed after the French model, to the extent that young married couples never indulge in the luxury of a family until well able to afford it, and then the number is limited to a couple or three at the outside. We do not say that this Is the invariable rule, but it is one very generally followed, as indeed might be inferred from the disproportionately slow natural increase of population in the larger as compared with the smaller cities and towns. The Church of Rome regards any means taken to limit the increase of “ responsibilities” as a mortal sin, and stamps those who adopt them as guilty of the crime of infanticide. Of course, this is not the place to enter into any argument as to whether the Church is or is not war, ranted in taking this view; but as Father Henneberry’s bare statement seems to require some explanation, we make it for the benefit of the thunderstruck people of Dunedin and of anyone else whom it may concern.