CARE OF CRIPPLES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22401, 23 April 1936, Page 14

CARE OF CRIPPLES

THE AUCKLAND FUND CONTRIBUTIONS NEEDED APPEAL BY ORGANISER A further appeal to the people of the Auckland province to support the fund being raised by the Mayor of Auckland, Mr. Ernest Davis, for the assistance of crippled children has been issued by the organiser of the fund, the Rev. W. P. Rankin. Many parents, he says, have mortgaged all they possess or spent all their savings to help their crippled child, and have after years of anxiety to confess failurc. The doctors have done their best, many of them without fee. Money is needed ior research into the disease of infantile paralysis, and such a home as has been offered by Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Wilson for the benefit of crippled children will give opportunity for the study of this disease. The helplessness and innocence of the victims adds to tbo horror of their suffering, and they cannot be allowed to grow up inefficient and unfitted for the battle of life without some attempt being made to lighten their burden. Money is being spent freely and needlessly, the organiser points out, on all manner of pleasures—horses and motors, cards, dress, wine, poodle dogs, and cats —that could well bo diverted into a more useful channel and help to give poor little sufferers a chance of recovery. It is a strange fact of social psychology that people in tbo mass—whether nations, smaller communities, or crowds—have much less feeling or conscience than the same people have as individuals. The Wilson home is an ideal home, and in it every crippled child will have its chance in life to becoino a self-supporting citizen, but that depends on the public response to tho Mayor of Auckland's appeal.