The Custody of Children.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 29 July 1890, Page 2

The Custody of Children.

In a Bill dealing with the custody of children, the Lord Chancellor proposes to enact that, where the parent or gunrdin of a child applies to the English High Court for a writ ov order for the production of the child, and the Court is of opinion that the parent or guardian has so co'iduc'ed lrmself that the Court would revise to enforce his right to the custody of the child, tbp Court may iv i's discretion de« cline to iesuc the writ or make the order. W e think that the proposal stntemanlilce. "Where parents have neglected, illtreated, or cast-off their offspring, ov are living vicious live?, and pv vate persons or institutions hnvfi assumed the cave and training of such children, such kindly labours ouf?ht not to he thrown away, or the children's training interrupted, at the instance of parents, who, for some selfish reasons want to regain the custody of their children. The state hns a duty to the children of itg citizens, and it is the duty of the state to stind between the children and the parents, when the interests of the children demand such interference. There are in the Colony many children, pome — the illegitimate offspring of vicious parents, who have, beon cartel for and brought up by kindly respectable setters wh°n the parents hav<» cist them off, and sometimes these parent", after years of utter np^ec^, suddenly claim to remote the children from their foster-parents have become attached to the childrpn and treat them as their own. We think in such cases, the state ought not to p*ace at the disposal of these unnatural parents the powers of the law to compel the foster-parpn f s to resisrn the 'hildren to a probable 'ife of vice. The Lord Chancel'or's Bill gives the C<wfc power to refuse even to have the child produced by th»se who have charitably assumed the care of it, if snob, refusal is justified by the previous conduct of the pnrent. This Bill if passed into law will be a great encouragement to such noble inetituHons as Dr Pa nardo's Home and Dr Ste^ens^ns Home, in the former of which Dt Barnardo has under his ca'*e between thr^e and four thousand waife and. strays of the streets who. are being trained to live* of respectability and industry.