“QUINS” HAVE BECOME A BIG BUSINESS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 130, 26 February 1937, Page 11

“QUINS” HAVE BECOME A BIG BUSINESS

Guardianship Duties Too Heavy for Minister

CHILDREN NOW HAVE HUGE FORTUNE

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received February 25, 10.30 p.m.) Toronto, February 25. The Welfare Minister, Mr. W. Croll, has introduced a Bill in the provincial Legislature to permit him to retire from the capacity of one of the guardians of the Dionne quintuplets, and to substitute an Ontario official guardian. He said: “I hope and expect that now the parents will assume an increasingly larger responsibility, leading to the ultimate reuniting of the family.” He explained that the quintuplets had become a big business, and he had virtually to choose between the guardianship and his work for the Government.

He said the babies now had 543,000 dollars invested in bonds, with contracts assuring them an additional 200,000 dollars annually for the next two years. BABIES IN THE NEWS Featured in Canada Toronto, February 24. Babies have maintained prominence in the news during the past year in Canada. The Dionne quintuplets continue to hold first place as they advance toward their third birthday next May, and fill tourists make their way to the Dafoe Hospital, at Callander, where the babies can be seen in their playhouse. The Millar “stork derby” will make news for months, and it is now for the Toronto courts to decide who shall receive something more than £100,600 under the last testament of the Toronto lawyer who left it to the Toronto woman who should be mother of the most children in a given 10-year period. The will has been ruled valid, but the contesting parents still have to prove their claims.

In the closing months of the year triplets came to at least four Canadian families. Three boys were born to a Toronto woman through a Cesarian operation and all survived. A Montreal baby, one of twins—the other died—weighed less than lib. at birth, and at 18 weeks was up to 81b. and gaining steadily. At Brampton, near Toronto, a single baby weighed only 290 z„ but survived. And at St. John, N.Z.. Canada’s only quadruplets—Lydia, Edith, Edna and John Mahaney—celebrated their thirteenth birthday at Christmas.