Page 9 Advertisements Column 1

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1915, Page 9

ibies' outcry of a „ o-i »».'= the "Manchester Guardian." «H is difficult enough to think with the charity of those who hegan it, though the number of ordinarily sober-minded people who helped to spread it by accepting it and passing on wild statements on the slightest evidence or on no evidence at all shows that it is to be reckoned «. „»,•♦ „f the psycholazing story of ti.c Russian troops who travelled th-ough England last September. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which may be taken as being just about as well equipped for making the enquiry a 8 any organisation in the country, has just completed one into the statements on the alleged increase and prospective increase in the number ol illegitimate births. It has covered the whole of the country, and it should settle the 'war babies' for ever. Where women have been living with soldiers as their wives, there will be some illegitimate births—the only tiling which can be said to be true about the outcry, and, of course, not a new one. The rest, after thorough enquiry, proves to be an unwarranted libel without any foundation in fact, both on the conduct of the troops, which is reported as 'very good,' and on the girls and women 'in the neighbourhood of the camps." A very convincing appeal has been published in some English papeis fnr.i a body of influential women, suggesting that specially selected women should be allowed to have their wish and go to the firing lines as stretcher-bearers to collect the wounded, many of whom, it is widely realised by all who have relatives at the front, have to be left on the field for one, two, and sometimes more days. U is suggested that the women Bhould wear a dress so distinctive that it would he impossible to mistake them for anything but what they are. "Women would b» glad and proud to take all risks—wg submit that the greatness of the need justifies the experiment," the petition conclude*.