TOO MANY CHILDREN

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 August 1939, Page 4

TOO MANY CHILDREN

S.M. SCOLDS PARENTS Hearing a case of neglect of London children, the Metropolitan Police Court Magistrate, Mr. C. Mullins, who, himself, has three children criticised the parents for having seven children. “Did you want to have all these children?” he asked the wife, who replied: “It is my misfortune; the Almighty allotted them to me.”"Leave the Almighty out,” said the Magistrate. “He would blush with shame to see all this. The public ought to hear how appalling is the cruelty that can be inflicted on young children brought into the world under similar conditions to these. “With three or four children, the defendants might have been, well offBut they have been overwhelmed. In my view, society and religons opinion are mainly to blame for these horrors. 1 have not heard of any attempt by the authorities to teach birth control to persons like these.” Before making the above statement, and sentencing both parents to a month’s imprisonment, the Magistrate said: — “I feel so boiling with rage that 1 must adjourn the case and think over it calmly; I am in no condition to be judicial.”