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Evening Star, Issue 12687, 13 June 1907, Page 4

Tn>; eighth annual report of tie Society for the Protection, of Women nd Children, read this ftemoon at tho Town fall, is a melancholy record, fever, perhaps, in the history of mankind has there been a time when so many agencies and individuals were working together for tho alleviation of suffering and misery, and never, perhaps, has there been a period in which such help was more imperatively needed. Tho cry of despair ascends on all sides. It comes from the homes of the rich as well as the homes of the poor, the mansions of the wealthy equally with tho slums of the outcast. This is but another way of saying that benevolence and philanthropy ax© not solely confined to administering material help or to the distribution of monetary doles. Society and the institnti-ms to which society has given birth ‘ire constantly being called upon to protect and shelter tho wife and the child, the mother and the sister, from the cruelties and heartlcesnoss of their natural guardians. And for these ulcer spots of modem civilisation we have not to look always, or possibly in a majority of canes, to those homes where poverty and sickness and the weary struggle to make both ends meet afford at least a superficial cans© for neglect and ill-treatment. That this is tmo oven of Dunedin—a City that started unhampered by the inherited social degradations of centuries —a reference to tho report of tho Society will show. Wo there read ; Men who pass as good citizens have proved themselves worse than tho very poor in thedr treatment of women, and it is becoming a serious question as to whether men, sane on all other points, bnt acting as madmen or worse towards their wives, should not h© subject to restraint, ox compelled to give security for good behaviour through some court whoso proceedings shall bo conducted in camera, lik© those of tho Juvenile Court. Those women who in other walks of life suffer anything rather than sue for relief, lest tbeir offspring should bo injured by th© publicity given to their 1 wrongs, are too many to allow it to be impossible for anything to be done for them. It is this sort of thing which at ; mir6 makes us despair of permanently establishing a nation of true men. Sociologists and humanitarians may elaborate, and practical statesmen like th© late Mr fkxldon may reduce the abstract to the concrete, but their efforts too often are largely brought to naught through sheer inability to make headway against that appalling mass of heart-breaking selfishness which is the fruitful parent of crime, disease, and death. The evil is universal, but there ore, as we have said, plausible excuses to be offered on behalf of older and more congested centres. Wo can mak4 no each excuses here. We began free and untrammelled, yet sixty years later it is possible to write that “ the home “ life of our community is far from healthy; “the standard of morals lower than it “should be; wo carmot congratulate young ■“New Zealand on its morality, seeing that “tho increase in the number of cases of “affiliation baa been twofold.” There are .f-Him of drunken husbands . and..An-used I

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wives, the number of which has “ gone up “to'on extent unprecedented in our his“tory”;‘ and the conclusion is drawn, wo think rightly so, that had it not been for tho Society these evils would have gone on unchecked until tho shame and tho blame thereof—which in a measure attach to us as a community, and is apart from tho individual suffering and misery homo by the victims—would have culminated in much more serious consequences. The report gives credit to the “marked effect” the amendments made by Mr Seddon at tho instance of the Society to the Destitute Persons Act have had on decreasing tho number*of desertions of wives by husbands, but urges that further amendment is necessary in order to make it possible to attach the wages of drunken and spendthrift fathers and husbands. There are few tilings more disgusting or that give rise to more righteous anger than the spectacle of a man literally throwing his wages away on an article that reduces him to a level lower than the brute, whilst his wife and family, to whom he is hound by every tio of duty and honor,, aro wanting the necessities of life. Opinions, doubtless, will differ on some of tho suggestions tho Society make, buH there can be no difference of opinion on the noble and blessed work they are trying to overtake. Nor is there any ground for satisfaction that such a Society is necessary. Its presence is a reflection upon our manhood, even though that manhood be redeemed in part by tlio willing self-sacrifice of others who help and sustain as well as check and punish. But human nature being what it is, and the harvest of its sowing eo plentiful, wo must accept the situation, and help forward every effort that is made to save women from the brutalities of husbands and children from the atrocities of parents. It is impossible, seemingly, to eradicate, hut it in possible to mitigate. In this belief we commend the report of the Society to the thoughtful consideration of our readers.