MENTAL DEFECTIVES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1924, Page 7

MENTAL DEFECTIVES

CONCLUSION OF EVIDENCE IN AUCKLAND,

(BY TEIEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

AUCKLAND, This Day. * The Mental Defectives Committee con> eluded its Auckland sittings this morning. Miss Girdler, superintendent of St. Mary's Hpmes, Otahuhu, which provides for young mothers with illegitimate children, with infants born of defective parents, and the care of infants during emergencies /by said home rules, a girl had to remain there, six months after the birth, of her child. In nine cases in the past two years the ages of mothers were under sixteen years. In seven enses the child died, and in at least five cases the child had some definite peculiarity. Of twenty-two children at leasti seven were below the standard of development for their age. The home had no constitutional power to control inmates. Many after a few months wahti ed to return to the old life. Reformatory worfevjvas seriously interfered with by parents, who sought" to benefit by tha guTs labour, often in the milking shed. Difficulty was experienced with subnormal or deficient children, which tha existing schools for defectives do not