UNCHAINING THE BRUTE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 102, 4 May 1925, Page 12

UNCHAINING THE BRUTE

" That new baby of yours didn't hap* pen to be born with gills, did it?" said Ihompson to Porter the other night. "With what?" said Porter, in indignant astonishment.

"Gills," I said. "Don't you know that science declares that every human baby is a fish, a reptile, and a little monkey before it is born as we know it ;

_ " Rats," sard the outraged Porter speak for your own." * " True, all the same; babies have been born with gills, which science says proves the animal stages we pass through before we see light." ''Seems to me," retorted Porter, there should be more proof than that. though I'll grant there's the brute in most of us.

Yon re right there, and it doesn't take much to unchain the brute in some cases, 'said Thompson. " Here's an instance : '

_ A family group—mother sitting with six months .old baby on her knee, two little tots playing around—nice home professional people. There's just a tense air that makes you feel all is not as it should be.' '

" Door opens, father cames in, quick words pass. He .strides forward and seizes the. little baby. The mother tries to take it from him; ho grasps her arm, twists it till it nearly breaks; she hai i•* g t o: j Thtil> the baby: is let fa>i and its head strikes the ground. Follows the wailing of the little one,- the mother s sobs as she picks the tiny tot up and gathering the other two to her swiftly shepherds them to the basement of the house and locks the door on the

They stopped m the basement all night; have done it often, and why' Because tho brute was unchained in that otherwise good husband." . • ♦X7';r? ]l" toad or something,"-inter-jected Porter. . b

drunk or snything-plain drunk. Neve? arrested, never been in Court; his wife won t complain to the police. Just one of hundreds who make hell on earth of what should be home for wive! and

"Something should be done to that kmd of! a beast," Eaid Porlor o^ish^r 1551^111^^^1 " Too true " replies Thompson. "Best thing U keep the drink away from them, . T hoy * ollld thank f £ *rom .but so long as ' modcratos ' keep the hquor traffic here those men will g0 „ ng ,VlHlptad "^ fa!1 ' aud lives earth " bs kept iv beU on in)" ftf r .j *£' are tho minority," interjected Harding. " You'd bo surprised to know how many hundreds of cases are on record that never get into Court. What I've just been telling y ou .is a true story of Aew Zealand hi e ,» replied Thompson. . After all," said Porter . I. >d jump-any of us would jump-Into the harbour to save a kiddie from drowning -any kudie We'd risk our lives for '? i 11 ?- Should we not our flnnk that ■ a doubtful luxury, for tho bake of a 1 these suffering kkklies, and WJO children now maintained by the btato because drink got their parents."-