Fifteen Babies.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3709, 8 September 1906, Page 3

Fifteen Babies.

A PARIS CRECHE SCENE. At Blaincourt, a suburb of Paris, an extraordinary noise as of a whole crowd of babies screaming at the top of their voices was heard recently by the neighbors. The noise came from an infants’ creche close by, in which a number of little children, mostly under two years of age, were kept. They were babies whose mothers were too poor to rear them, and had left them indefinitely in charge of the creche. As the screaming continued for several hours, some of the neighbours went to find out what was the matter, and discovered the place deserted, except for fifteen babies, who had evidently been abandoned by the matron for many hours. The creche had been kept up for many years by a priest, the Abbe Biagani, and the children were looked after by an elderly woman named Mile. Hamade, and also by an infirm old lady, aged So, a relative of the priest. Recently the matron died suddenly from a sharp attack of pneumonia. The priest received such a shock on going to the creche and finding the matron dead that he fell dead in the. room. The babies were then left in charge of the infirm old lady, who was so frightened on the day of the funeral that she fed, leaving the unfortunate babies to themselves, It was not till 24 hours later that the plight of the poor little children was discovercd.—Daily Telegraph.