CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS ABANDONMENT.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 339, 17 July 1878, Page 4

CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS ABANDONMENT.

Tills Nelson Evening Mail , of the 2nd July, referring to the withdrawal of aid for charitable purposes by Government, says :—“ The poor creatures who are the inmates of the houses known as the Taranaki Buildings have boon left by a paternal Government to starve, and are at present dependent upon the charity of Mrs Carter, the matron, who has kindly undertaken upon her own responsibility to provide them with rations and firing for a week. These unfortunate people arc nine in number. Two of them are comparatively young men, but one of these is imbecile, and the other so doubled up with chronic rheumatism that he is cpiite helpless, being unable to do anything beyond a little knitting, by which he earns enough to keep himself in clothing. The remaining seven are aged respectively Cl, 05, 73, 77, 77, 7b, and 81. All are totally unable to earn their living, and all were on the Ist July deprived of Government aid, and left utterly destitute, and without a penny to purchase their daily bread. In addition to these there are many who have hitherto been receiving out-door relief with ■which to supplement the small amount they are able to earn. Money aid "was up to Saturday last being granted to nine in town, two in Waimca East, four in Waimea South, and seven in Motueka, in sums varying from ten shillings to £2 per month. One of the recipients was a widow with a very large family ot young children, two of whom are idiots. They too are deprived of the little pittance by the aid of which they were just able to keep the Avolf from the door. There were also ten individuals in town who were supplied with rations. These have been stopped, and those who wore in the habit of receiving them must go hungry if not assisted by private charity. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds are spent on feasting a lot of Maoris, but old settlers who by illness and misfortune have been reduced to utter destitution are to be deprived ot the means of keeping body and soul together. And this is called good government. We trust that the Mayor has telegraphed to Ministers laying before them in very forcible terms the condition in which those unfortunate people arc left.”

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, The Dunedin Age gives the following description of the results from overcrowding in the Caversham Industrial School:—“ From a, social aspect, this overgrown institution may be aptly compared to the sewers of the city. So far from being beneficial from a sanitary point of view, the sewers merely collect and empty everything offensive into the bay ior the purpose of eventual distribution by the action of the tide. If no deadly epidemic has yet arisen from this process, it is simply because the population has notyet grown sufficiently numerous to pollute the bay beyond the point of safety. Like the sewers and the bay, the Industrial School is made to answer the purpose of a general receptacle for juvenile nuisances. Once within its Avails, everything is mixed together indiscriminately. The children ol the honest dead, the offspring of the drunkard, the vagrant, and the criminal, arc stirred together like lime and sand till they become common mortar —associated intimately in disposition—bound together by common ties. Lot us look at this institution for a moment. Here in one corner is the infant illegitimate deserted by its heartless mother; there is the young orphan who has still a faint recollection of loving relatives and playmates and a comfortable home ; in another corner is the young uncontrollable, Avho broke so repeatedly the bonds of paternal restraint that he Avas gi\ r en up as hopeless ; bcj'ond is the Bedouin of the drunkard, Avho learned to swear in innocence of the import of the terms employed ; and alongside is the young, thief, who studied his profession soon after he left off wyearing long clothes. Thus avc have the day and the porcelain —elements that under ordinary circumstances could never mingle, triburated from their childhood in a common mortar, —bound together by a common fate. The incongruous elements of society are brought into contact —the pure and the impure—the honest and the dishonest—■ and Avith what result ? Socially and morally the effeetis necessarily disastrous, for moral cleanliness is no protection against the leprosy of vice, and social contamination spreads like a contagion in this ill-assorted nursery.” MARITAL PHRENOLOGY. Ax American paper sa"ys :—The science of phrenology appears to be shedding fresh light upon the subject of matrimony, although at first sight the connection between ‘ bumps’ and connubial felicity may appear somewhat remote. A phrenologist in Ncav York has executed a scries of plaster casts of the craniums of about thirty cminentpublic men, single and married. A reporter of the Ncav York Times, Avho inspected the models, Avas struck Avifch the symmetrical formation of the heads ot the bachelors as compared Avith those of the benedicts. For instance, adjacent to the cast of a disciple of single blessedness conspicuous for its symmetry, lay that of (Secretary Sherman, which Avas noticeable fora series of undulations and indentations that bore silent testimony to a perfect cycle of matrimonial vicissitudes. Similarly, in the south-east corner of the head of Genera Sheridan (whose martial experiences are | someAvhat limited), there appeared traces |

of a recent swelling, which the reporter was wholly unable to account for, save on the theory 1 that the flat iron was on the move, and describing parabolas in the family circle,’ <s The Auckland Herald says :—The site of the bridge at Hamilton (Waikato) has at last been chosen, and the preliminary steps are being taken. The cost of the bridge, together with the approaches, wil probably be about £IO,OOO. 1 1