LOST CHILDREN.

Southland Times, Issue 1631, 10 September 1872, Page 3

LOST CHILDREN.

A reporter of the New York Times has interviewed a sergeant of the city police whose specialty is the care and restitution of lost children, and has gleaned some interesting information on the subject. It seems that during the summer months an average of 2000 lost children are picked up in the streets of New York and conveyed by the police to the several stations. About three-fourths of the number are reclaimed by their parents or guardians within a few hours after they have been taken in charge. What are left unclaimed after sundown are drafted to the Mulbury Street headquarters, where they remain till called ' for. "It is wonderful," the sergeant remarked, " how far the children stray j from. We have had three and four-year-olds come to New York and wander through the streets that had strayed away thirty miles from New York. Brooklyn i children are as common as Jeraey city and Hoboken babies. How they smuggle , themselves on board the ferry boats is i strange. On procession days we have , whole rafts of them." Summer excuri siona are other occasions "which, according , to the experience of the sergeant, are i peculiarly productive of police difficulties , with children. " The parents get dancing or on the spree," and though, as the . officer remarks, one " would think that • mothers always, or even fathers," would, i under any circumstances, recognise their own offspring, it sometimes occurs that they fail. " Babies get levanted off in a surprising manner, and I have known it take close on a week before we could assort them right and to the satisfaction of all parties." A peculiarly sad case in ' point is cited. Pour years ago there were ' some six or seven babies left in charge of j a little girl in a barge, while the mothers went on shore for refreshment. Some 1 reckless persons, observing the situation, 1 managed to entice the girl on Bhore and ' engaged her attention while their female I accomplices got into the barge, and, undressing the babies, deliberately made an 1 interchange of underclothing. The policesergeant is not able to " say whether the affair is settled yet."