AN IDEAL JUSTICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 18 (Supplement)

AN IDEAL JUSTICE

A WOMAN’S WORK News comes from Wisconsin of a sign up in the waiting-room at the railway depot by Mrs. Elizabeth E. Cushing, of Portage, reading: ‘‘Any girl or boy needins a friend call 23(54, day or night.” The story tells of a deserted woman with her child, waiting at the depot for the husband who lias not (and probably will not) come for her, and who, seeing the notice, calls up the number. In a few minutes Mrs. Cushing is taking care of her. Milk for the baby, a bed for the mother, and the next day the action of the law for the husband who is brought back to his responsibilities. This is the way Mrs. Cushing works. Her court is her life, and none come to her who do not get justice of the right kind, be the necessity kindness or severity. She was petitioned into the office with official opposition, but has well justified those who placed her in a position where justice, the beautiful. is also the prompt. Mrs. Cushing is the mother of twin daughters, girls of 17 years, and is a good housekeeper as well as mother and judge. When she came to Portage seven years previously, on a wet depressing evening, she nearly turned back to New England sunshine and brightness, but she “had a talk with her conscience,” which showed her ‘that she probably had some duties to fulfil in the place she had been led to. and in the end ‘‘conscience won,” and she has never repented the decision. •'She has a great sympathy with the poor, the unwashed, the despised,” says her chronicler. ‘‘She wants to give them (as she puts It), not only bread, but an occasional circus—not only a fair deal, but a little more.”