The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24. SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81830, 24 August 1906, Page 2

The Daily News. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24. SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN.

The story of a snd'oiing child will, as a general tiling, tike up less space in the pipers mid ev.rke less indignation tl.au the stcry of a poisoned lacohorse. Human life is so cheap. It has recently been pointed out that New Zealand loses a million pounds a year by ill-feeding calves, but statistics are not available as to the cash 10.-s to the country through infanticide and cruelty tocliildren. A story

that came from Christchurch the other day has many tragic elements. It is the story of human baiter, just as pitiful a story as a story of slave trading iu the ohl-tiine Southern States of America. An unwanted babe that must he got rid of. It need not necessarily die - but it wouldn't matter much, A babe born in the image of the Creator, a bibe that only to man-made convention was, according to man's law, a pariah, an outcast, an unrecognised atom, who, had it lived, would be handicapped through life. The child was given away. The person who received it was to get £7O whether it lived or died. It died next day of suffocation. The jury appeared to believe that the child smothered itself. There was insufficient evidence to show iiow the suffocation was caused and by whom. * * * * Convention, of course, drives people with unwanted babies to get rid of them anyhow. The mother of a child has the same instinct of motherhood whether she be married or no, but convention kills the instinct if it can. Also convent ion kills the babe. Apart from the terrible pathos of these cases, it seems to us that it is best for these-unwanted babes to die, but it is hideous that they should be regarded as chattels and bandied from hand to hand at a price. Civilisation is singularly lacking in civilised methods. A case of sheep stealing will send a man to gaol for seven years. A case of child murder has so; it a woman to gaol for four. A lliwera youth was sent to gaol for twelve months for taking a few shillings. A woman went to gaol fcr j. three for hideous cruelty to a child. . Cod alone knows what would become of some children out for organised [ charity. * # * *

Masy people regard children as a veritable nuisance. Because of tin's the community is tnxel. In numberless cases, children are deserted as if they were worn-out horses or sick dogs. Magistrates in New Zealand frequently say : " I don't know what I should du with these children if it

were not for the Salvation Army

Laugh at the " Army," if you will, at its methods out of doors. You

can't afford to laugh at its private work in connection with the unmir-

lied mother and the babe that might be used ns a mere chattel but for the

good souls in the poke bonnets. That a great reform is needed in the ma'.te-r of looking after neglected children, legitimate and otherwise, is certain. '.he hideous disclosures of '■b.iby-farming''; the constant, charges <if cruelty which are often met by I ridiculously inadequate punishment, th" army of people wdio make a living by trading in infants, are sufficiently frequent to nuke any but the most abandoned ashamed of our alleged civilisation.

llt siiouiii) be illegal lor any person [to accept charge of av;y infant, until , the person li.i.s b-;en approve! of by personal examination before .a migis- , trate. It should be illegal fur any person to offer, sanctuary to a cliii , j the condition being that money shall l be paid to the guardian "whether the ] child lives or dies." Any person who ill-treats a fchild is a brute. Brutes are punished by being Hogged. It is the only punishment they understand. Yet under British law a titled lady who had been guilty of cruelty that resulted 111 death to a child, was fined Jt'oO and let off scot free ! No judge has ever ordered Hogging for a child • (logger. He apparently hasn't the power. He should have it right qiuckly. A man in Wellington two years ago a lady, lie is serving a sentence of nine years' hard labor. lie deserved it. Hut he could have half-killed a child and be sont up for a'. few months. He deserved the nine years, but the child-llogger deserved nine years and nine flog-

Willi! it is absolutely illegal to barter children, when an unmarried woman with a chihl is looked upon as at least as respectable as a nnriud woman who knows too much to do anything so uiifashi 'liable as to bo a j mother, and when julges, magistrates and J's.P. assess a human life at the sauio value as the life of a racehorse or a sheep dog or a prize pig maybe there will bo less hideous cruelty to little children. One hears from the pulpit of the wickedness of human nature, but one does not bear much of the way to look after the result of the wickedness. If the wicked are brutally wicked, they should receive the punishment of brutes. iThere poor little innocent babies are in question there should be no mealy-mouthed sentimentalism. There .should be action. Work and not words urn neco-savy, but people as a rule don't begin to work until someone yells at theoi through a megaphone.