TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11460, 19 December 1902, Page 6

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS.

Sir, —Permit mo to thank you for so ably olmmpkming the better protection ol our children. Even though there were but a single sentence self-evidently out of proportion to the outrage committed according to the good moral feeling of th? community, ali outcry against it would have been certainly justified. But when with n about three weeks one reads in the pubUc press af three cases in which the longest sentence was two years, then indeed toleration on the port of the pubiic would reflect upon itself. It is tiie experience of our most tried and trusted workers that at the lowest computation for one such case that comes into Court there are at least thr-ee which are hushed up and never reported. On« e of tlhi jurymen wlio hud naU such a case to try, said that if sut-li a, thing ever happened t+> his child lie woulu n«vr let it bo brought into C»>urt," .micu was the nature of tlie ordeal which chilii:vn have to untk'rgo in the witness box in :r<llll of the crowd that gathers there. Now. Mr, to put it in the mihkst surely it is most uttsetmly.that tlu.>« isisfs sbwilii be tried in open Court, if thero is any compassion left for . Anyone with the fllightcst- ilcsir*»%or a ittk- girl'a we-U----b»'ing would exclaim against a manner ot procedure caJculattd tn divest her "of every shred of proper ieeliug and conscious *>haij><?. Many uonvn think tlut if (juestioj.s musi be anked of tlic child t!ie illustrate- aions should have the r:gh: of putting them, ;w thw wouM ur.doubU'dly save much of d:*gastiiii; suggtstioti, and perhaps not terrify the little one co much. l*rob-ihly thLs ■ statement will be disagreed with, but nvre the victim killed outright it could not anuwfT (juistions, and the ca.«v could be deal: with on circumstantial tvideuce. and on the iTC-dical t'virlejice of a woman" doctor. In aDy case, tlw jurj' empaneiied to tr\«udi olfences .-houid always bo half com-pnf'-ed of women. I trust that this agitation may not close dovrn until it Las done something h> redrv&s the wrong and secure for helpless cliildiiood a stronger measure ©f prot«lion.—Yours, etc., 0. E. C