A CHILD'S RELIGION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 57

A CHILD'S RELIGION.

An interesting case has been before the courts in Sydney of which the religious difficulty is the raison d'etre. Mr Duerdin, a wholesale chemist in Melbourne, left an illegitimate daughter by a woman named Elizabeth Rowlands. The daughter was placed by him at his .death ia a convent in Sydney, bhough neither Duerdin nor Rowlands was Roman Catholic. She has been bhere since, and, of course, been broughb up a Catholic. Now she is 16. Rowlands applied to the courts to get possession of the girl, not asking that she should live with her, but with Duerdin'g mother, who was scandalised that her son's child should be brought up a Catholic. The Chief Justice, before whom the case was first brought, interviewed the girl and deeded that she was happy and comfortable where ehe was and should remain there. The Full Court; has now reversed this decision. The law is quite clear, they say, that the father of an illegitimate child has no power to appoint its guardians. The mother has a right to her child ; alt the court has to decide is whether she is a fib person to exercise it, and as the child was to be pub in charge of her grandmother, who. had an income of £3000 a yea', they considered it would ba for the child's happiness to remove her from the couvent. It declined to see the child and ascertain her wishes on the subject, as no precedent could be found for deferring to the wishes of a child under the age of 16 as against the wishes of its parents. Bub the courk did not (ouch the question of bte child's future religion. She has bern confirmed and has taken the sacramenb as a Roman Catholic;' now her grandmother intends to change her religion to Protostanb. As the girl is 16, there are all the elements of future trouble in the case. November 14.