CALLOUS PARENTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12430, 22 January 1915, Page 6

CALLOUS PARENTS.

I'jjr I'uess Association. I Wellington, January 'JI. "These women teem to have no shame and no compunction about: parting with their children and leaving them under the Board's care," said tlie Kev. J. K. Elliott at the meeting of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board to-day, when assistance for children under the Board's care was being discussed. The .subject came up when the chairman of the Charitable Aid Committee (.Mr D. Campbell) .supplemented his financial statement with a reference J to the increasing number of children. ! dealt with at tin.- Board's institutions. He said that the number of children committed hail increased by 37, as compared with tho first nine months of the previous year, the present number in homes and .schools being 31 o. A.s examples of the eases dealt with .Mr Camp"hell mentioned that or ~M) children committed from August to Dec-ember. I'2 were the illigitimnte offspring of single women. In t.lu> cases of seven children the fathers had deserted, and the circumstances of the others made separation desirable. In one case of four children of one family the father of two of them had divorced his wife for misconduct with the lather of her other two children, who were illegitimate. In another family where four children were concerned, confirmed insobriety on tho part of the mother, coupled with incompetence and some insobriety on the part of the father, was the ground of committal. One child was deserted by both parents, and another's mother was a widow who was in service. "Al--Ihough the total expenditure on the lioarded-out children," concluded Mr Campbell, "shows an excess of £299 over estimates, it is hoped that the provision made for contingencies will prevent a deficit at the close of tho financial year, although the prevailing unprecedented conditions made it impossible to forecast even the immediate future with anything like certainty." He urged that the Board should comprehensively review the position of the children.

It was at this stage that the Rev. Mr Elliott exfri'essed his profound regret at the apparent callousness of some women who parted with their children. "The.y have not the proper feelings of motherhood," he said, "and do not show the regard for their children. which, one would expect." Dr M'Kenzie said he hoocd that the position would he reviewed, because in such times as th» present the countrv wanted every child it could get, and some of the children under the Board's care would, if properly treated, make fire citizens. Eventually the Board decided to Jpare the matter in the hands of the Charitable Aid Committee to go into.