Dr Barnardo in Trouble Again.

Evening Star, Issue 8406, 6 January 1891, Page 3

Dr Barnardo in Trouble Again.

In the Queen's Bench Division the Lord Chief Justice read the judgment of the Divisional Court, consisting of tho Lord Chief Justice and Mr Justice Mathew, in the case of the Queen v. Barnardo, in which Mrs M'Hugh, mother of an illegitimate boy, aged eleven years, sought a writ of habeas corpus to compel Dr Barnardo to give him up that he might be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. Dr Barnardo refused, alleging that the woman was of drunken, dissolute habits, and had used the boy cruelly. His Lordship observed that in support of Dr Barnardo's case many witnesses were examined—detectives, he called them—who resorted to a system of " shadowing " the unhappy woman, peeping through keyholes and listening in chinks of doors, with the result that the charges against tho woman completely broke down. The boy had also been interviewed in private by their Lordships, and ho absolutely denied that his mother treated him cruelly. It wae clear he was well cared for, and willing to remain under Dr Bernardo's care, but after the scandalous attack which Dr Barnardo had made on the character of the mother, it was evident he was not tit to have the custody of the boy. The rub would, therefore, be declared absolute, with costs. Its application would be suspended ponding appeal. Commenting on this caße the London * Weekly Despatch,' of !)tli November, remarks : scandalous that Dr Barnardo should be permitted to waste the subscriptions of charitable people in prolonging hiß vexatious controversy with Mrs M'Hugh. .... And notwithstanding that the Queen's Bench has ruled in her favor, Mrs M 'Hugh has not yet got back her child. Why ? Because Barnardo, being able to spend in litigation the money he gets for feeding and housing desolate waifs, is rich enough to appeal and drag Mrs M'Hugh to a higher court."