Untitled

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1797, 15 August 1906, Page 59

A sad story of povert} 7 and misfoi> tuno was unfolded to Dr A. McArthur, S.M., in his private room at the Magistrate’s Court on July 31. An application was made for the committal of a male infant, about three weeks’ old, to a receiving home. The mother is a single girl eighteen years of age. Her father, a cook, is sixty-two years old, and unable to follow 7 his occupation on account of the removal of a portion of his tongue and jaw through cancer. He can only get casual -work now, his earnings averaging 304 a week. The girl’s mother is forty-seven years old. Formerly a nurse, slie is now prevented from following that oocupation, not being qualified. She occasionally does a little charing. In addition to the young mother, there are in the family two other giown-up children —one earning 17s a week, the other (a cripple) 10s a week —a girl of eleven, so delicate as to be unable to attend school regularly, and a boy of dix. The mother of the infant is at present laid up, suffering from an abscess in the breast. Under the same roof with this family of seven (and the infant), whoso 'total earnings only amount, at the best, to £2 10s a w£ek ; there also reside a married daughter, her husband, and four children. Thid married daughter, twenty-five > yean? old, is suffering from an affection of the eyes, which may possibly result in permanent blindness. The rent of the house in which these two families live is 20s, payment of which they share. The Magistrate committed the infant to the Wellington Receiving Home. Ini the mfantime, a warrant is out for th* arrest of the putative father.