An Auckland Charitable Aid Scandal.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 253, 29 January 1889, Page 4

An Auckland Charitable Aid Scandal.

Ths Auckland Charitable Aid Board has lately had big discussions over the » abuses .of one of the institutions under its control, and at a recent meeting the Chairman moved that the maternity ward at the Upper Refuge should be closed on the Ist May, 1889, on the ground that it was " simply a premium for vice,” the motion however being lost. The Chairman made some strong remarks about the amount of imposition which was practised on the institution, and said that coupling the number of illegitimate children, which were shunted on the Board, with the paupers, he doubted if there would be enough to counterbalance them. Other members of the Board thought the ward was a necessary evil, one of them remarking that there were many girls who had been assisted in the institution who had risen again to respectable positions in society. Be was afraid that if they closed the ward they would eventually bring about a public scandal by driving some girl to despair. They took a drunkard and cared for him, and they also cared for the old woman who had led an abandoned life, and allowed her to end her in the Befuge; they took the criminal himself and carefully nurtured him to the gallows, and yet they turned their backs upon the poor girl who had sinned once. A writer in an Auckland paper gives instances of the abuse of the institution in question. It is said that ladies have come up from the South, saloon passage, passed through the ward, giving a premium to the “ babyfarmer ” for the adoption of the child, and returned to their homes, saloon again, with a light heart, and a vestal reputation, appreciating the advantages of the institution. One such case is said to have occurred quite recently, where a young lady from the South, well-connected, and desirous of saving her friends annoyance went up to Auckland to go into the ward, and returned home after being “on a tour to the North.” Perhaps one of the coolest cases was that of a woman from the East Coast, who, discovering her condition, went on to Auckland, with the benevolent intention of quartering herself on the Charitable Aid Board for the five

months previous to her confinement. It u stated that servant girls who are io often found in the ward, though earning their ten or twelve shillings per week, do not now take the trouble to save a shilling to provide the necessaries in such cases, but come to the institution in the sure and certain hope that they will obtain free linen, free medical attendance, free nursing, and free rations, with a fair prospect of shunting the children on the Charitable Aid Board after all is done. As the requisite privacy appears to be now obtainable, the last motive acting as a deterrent is removed.