THE PRISON CRECHE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7950, 27 January 1906, Page 7

THE PRISON CRECHE.

In the Lady's. Realm Annesley Kenealy has an article on the prison creche. Holloway 'prison, says the oontajns a charming babies' -creche. The iirst . creche in the world for prison babies, was started • «t Wormwood 1 v aorub.bs,.,. only six yaars ago. but was" abolished when this prfson 'was' reserved for men only; The largest creche is that at Holloway prison, and it has served as a model for. Liverpool, Manchester and Durham. And what do prisons want with a.orebhe? The writer explains:—"Coder .the old system -mothers with babies under nine •months old, serving, a torm of imprisonment, took no part in-.the work-a-day.tail of the prison. They remained at leisure in their'cells ''looking after' the baby. . But in spite of. the. closest supervision so ranch neglect and cruelty v<as shown by some of the mothers that the 'chairman of the Commission, Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, , determined to establish creches where the luckless infant who gathered bis first-im-pressions of life between the four walls of a prison should be furnished with comforts and luxuries beyond the dreams of the most ambitions prison baby. Early.of a morning before going to'her workroom eaoh i prison mother brings her baby to th» oreohe, \bere to be bathed and rdresaed by morn tender bands than hers. Twice during the day the mother is allowed to visit her baby, feed it, and take it for an airing in the prison exeroising-yard. From 5 p.m. until after breakfast the following morning she has the child to bear her company in the loneliness ■of her cell, a small cot for the baby standing beside the mother's •plank-bed.".