GRAVE CHARGES AGAINST A FRENCH INSTITUTION.

Evening Star, Issue 11673, 4 February 1902, Page 8

GRAVE CHARGES AGAINST A FRENCH INSTITUTION.

A grave scandal lias arisen about the Assistance Publique, the institution by which orphans and abandoned infants are brought np at the charges of the Oonseil General of the Seine. The ‘ Morning Trader ’ states that at the last meeting of the Council Ur Cherot brought the most serious charges against this institution. The Assistance Publique owns forty or forty-five agencies in Prance, under the orders of local officers, who, according to Dr Cherot, simply let out the children to private persons and receive in return one-third of the money allowed for the children’s maintenance, when, in return, they Shut their eyes to the way in which the persons who have taken the children under their care starve their charges, and wring out of them the most that they can of the remaining twothirds of the money paid by the central fund. Worse, however, than this takes place. The doctor says that in tho Nievre district, through which he made a tour of inspection, he found that one director of an agency took advantage of his position to force the girls under his charge to his will. Going back again this year to the Nievre, he found that out of twenty-five girl pupils in one charity school five were ■about to become mothers, while at five other schools the girls were forced to submit to the wishes of the directors or leave the establishment. The Council have undertaken to make a close investigation of Dr Cherot's charges. The Assistance Puhlique receives 20,000,000fr a year, and the scandal has roused the greatest indignation in Paris.