LOW YOUTHFUL MORALS

Otago Witness, Issue 2985, 31 May 1911, Page 5

LOW YOUTHFUL MORALS

PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN. THE CURFEW AND STERILISATION. DRASTIC MEASURES URGED. The tenth annual meeting of the Society for the Protection of Women and Children was held in the Town Hall on Thursday afternoon. The Rev. Canon Ourzon-Siggers, president of the society, occupied the chair. He stated that a number of apologies had been received, and read a letter from the Hon. J. T. Paul expressing his appreciation of the work of the society, and of its high value to the community. The balance sheet for the year past, presented by the chairman, showed the income to have been, £l2O 10s 6d by subscriptions and £3 4s lOd by interest. The chief items of expenditure were: Salaries, £llß 17s 6d; telephone, £5 10s; correspondence and trams, £ll 10s 3d. The expenses during the year exceeded the income by £l2 2s sd. but, fortunately, the credit balance of the previous year was sufficient to meet this increase. The sum of £7O 17s 6d passed through the society’s hands for maintenance, etc., in connection with affiliation cases.

The Chairman, in moving tho adoption of the annual report and balance sheet, said there were various parts of the report that he wished to refer to. First of all, he wished to lay stress upon the need of raising tile age of consent. At present the age of consent was 16 years, but experience showed that that was not high enough. Their report showed that there was a certain percentage of the illegitimate cases in which the girls became mothers just on or just over the age of 16 years. Some of these girls within the a,go of 17 • were mothers for the second time, which showed the serious nature of their suggestion in the matter of raising the age of consent.* There was a very sad and growing tendency for young fellows to go for weekends, and to arrange for girls to go with them. They hoped very shortly to make an example in the Police Court of a case in which a young girl about that age and certain young fellows were living under sad conditions. . This state of things had been known to the society for a good -time. These oases strengthened the demand for raising the age. With regard to illegitimacy, it was very sad that the girls concerned had bean most of them under the proposed ago of 18. They felt that the time bad come for a house of detention for firls who were mothers by immoral means, t was necessary that they should be detained (a) for inquiry into their past history, with a view to discovering what might be necessary from a medical point of view to prevent the birth of the unlit; (b) for reformative purposes, so that if nothing such as sterilisation was required, they might be sent out, at any rate, fitted to be the mothers of healthy children. He should say that the causes of this illegitimacy were threefold ; (1) A sad amount of ignorance on the part of girls and of young fellows, and because they had a little knowledge it made their ignorance infinitely worse. (2) A low moral standard in the community, which led men to disregard the fact that sins of the flesh were sins. (3) Defectives —many of the girls had been ensnared by men when they were mentally weak. A bouse of detention would prevent such girls becoming mothers ja. second time. He had just been reading the history of a family with 349 descendants, out of which 119 wore mentally defective. Out of the whole 349 only 42 Svere normal. Now, it was quite evident that those 119, going on producing at anything like the normal rate for, say, a generation, must produce their hundreds, running up to thousands, of mentally unfit—unfit for the position of maternity or paternity. That showed the necessity, he thought, of dealing with the whole case of the mentally unfit. Whilst the Government had some provision for the male mentally defective, theic was no provision for tho female mentally defective. They had pressed upon the Government from time to time to do something to meet this very urgent need. It mus*; bo perfectly clear that a nation in which there was a great deal of epilepsy and insanity and allied diseases was a nation which, was not only degenerate and decaying, but a nation which it was not worth while to preserve. With regard to the treatment of defectives, he was very strongly in favour of sterilisation. Dr Faulks, senior medical officer of the Bexley Asylum in England, had pronounced himself very strongly recently as favouring sterilisation for the unfit. In so doing he had quoted as supporting his opinion the fact that Dr Sharp, who is In charge of the mentally defective asylum in the State of Indiana, had operated 276 times on the unfit and had followed these cases up and traced their subsequent history. He said this, which was rather striking, that in not a single case of the 276 had there

been any unfavourable symptoms—no disorder either mental or nervous, and that their dispositions had been sunnier, their intellects brighter. New that was the strongest and most valuable testimony that they had on the advantages of dealing on scientific medical lines with this problem of the unfit. They had on the one side allowing the unfit to propagate the species with an alarming increase and a tremendous amount of suffering to ail 1 concerned; and on the other side they had sterilisation with no unfavourable symptoms, with sunnier disposition and brighter intellect. It seemed to him it was one of those oases in which science must triumph over sentiment. However much people might think it was interfering with the liberty of the subject they must consider that the benefit of the race was a far higher thing than the liberty of one individual—of an individual whose disposition was made sunnier by the treatment. Now that our magistrates —and he was glad to see it had been strongest in Dunedin —were sending men to prison for filthy language before women they might expect an improvement in some of those relationships between men and women for the betterment of which the society existed. In this society they got to know the state of the wives as mu«b as the state of the husbands, and he did really think that many of the hus--bands were to be more than pitied with the wives they had. As a churchman he did not believe in divorce; but as president of that society he did not know whether he did not believe in it as an absolute necessity in many cases. —(“Hear, hear!”) The nagging disposition of some women and their absolute incompetency to make a home meant that the man must either be allowed to be separated or else he would strike his wife. It seemed to him that the wives and women themselves needed to be raised to a higher conception of what, wifehood meant. Women had been so long kept under and treated as a chattel that now they had their liberty it, ■was not surprising that they should go to the other extreme. It was now time for them to return to a real sober conception of what wifehood meant; and it did mean this, that the woman was to be the helpmeet for the man, and unless she was a help fitted for the man she was no wife, whatever else she might be. He felt further, and so did the society, very strongly that the whole question of the betterment of the relations of men and women lay in the homo. It lay fundamentally in the training of the children and in what the children themselves were doing or were allowed to do in the days of their childhood. Therefore the society had very, very strong feelings indeed on the subject of applying the curfew laws. In the United States over 5000 cities had adopted the curfew law. —(Hear, hoar.) The principle of it was that no child under 16 should be allowed out without a guardian in the summer after 9 o’clock, and in the winter after 8. San Francisco had adopted this, and in the New York State the police reported that the result had been a decrease in juvenile crime by from stHo 75 per cent.’ When they considered that > bo,vs and girls were allowed to wander about the streets, and that our young men and young women were wandering about late in the evening, they must see at once the effect of that upon the home. It destroyed the whole idea of home life. There was no such thing as home to them. The home was merely a place where they_ lodged for so many hours. How was it possible for any child when it grew up to manhood or womanhood to make a home or to stay at home if all its early days before marriage had been spent in the street wandering? The curfew law would drive those off the streets and create a taste for home life. These few thoughts he wished to leave with thtem in all seriousness, because one felt that the state of morality in Dunedin was not what it should be. What was true of Dunedin was true of the other centres, and it was unfortunately sadly true that Dunedin was no worse than other places. He hoped the Government would appoint a commission to inquire into and provide moans for checking the birth of the unfit. Mr Burnett, in seconding the motion, said that the matter contained in the, report bad filled him with horror, dismay, and shame. He had little conception that such a state of things was surrounding us. If the cases mentioned in the report were fair indications of what was going on then these young people, who should be the most prosperous and healthy and happy in the world,, were in a very_ sad state. The remedy lay in the home life, Ho had come from a good home which the children looked upon as the most glorious thing in life, but what about those who had bad homes? They could not blame some for preferring to be in the open air. It was often the innocence of young people that led to their downfall. He believed that the parents were very much to blame for not taking more interest in their dhildren. Mr J. F. Arnold, M.P., congratulated the society on the work it had accomplished. The president had touched on the greatest problems that we as a nation had to cope with. He looked back to the time

of boarding- schools, where moral teaching was to some extent emphasised, whereas at the present time it was not touched upon in, our public schools. Boys and girls were permitted to reach the stage when they had a certain, amount of knowledge worse than ignorance. Knowledge was allowed to come to them in the course of nature rather than through education. They ought to be instructed and warned as to what the future held “for them. He was thoroughly in sympathy with the suggestion that the age of consent should be raised. It seemed very absurd to him that a young fellow was not allowed to purchase drink till he was 21, and 1 yet a girl of 16 was considered to have sufficient judgment to take on herself the whole responsibility of her moral actions. When one went into the homes and saw the cramped condition in which the mother had to attend to her domestic duties and undertake the whole responsibility for the children, often with very little money, _ his sympathies were with her. To get right down to the bottom of the problem they would have to study the wages question and tlhe housing conditions of the community. Women were beginning to realise that the wife should bo as much the manager of the home as the husband. Many of the better class of our women were preferring the single condition. He was delighted to hear that the society was ■taking note of what was being done during week-ends in some of our suburbs. He understood that the Government would almost in the immediate future make provision for female defectives in the direction desired. Mr H. D. Bedford said he was not sure that the community was ripe for a number of the drastic measures that had been suggested, but he -did think that the time had come when we could put into operation the curfew law as it existed in the United States. He referred to two cases that had recently come under his notice professionally. Both the girls concerned"were about 16. One was a half-witted girl,, and the' cause of the whole trouble was that she had been lowed to wander about the streets. It was a calamity for the girl, a calamity for the young men, anjj l a traT gedy for the child of such a parentage The other case was that of a girl just turned 16. These were oases that indicated an evil that ooujd be prevented by a curfew law. , It was in operation now in 5000 cities in America, and not one of them had proposed to go back to the old state of affairs. The testimony as to its success was magnificent both as to quality and quantity. In Elmira, for instance, it was stated that the law had reduced crime among children by 80 per cent, and that there had been an amazing increase in applications for children’s library books. The superintendent of a large home for girls in New York said that during the past 10 years she had not received a single child from a city where the curfew law was in operation. They would strongly urge that the press take the matter up adid emphasise the need for preventing children from roaming about at night. The curfew bell was rung at 8 in winter and 9 in summer. All children out at that time might be stopped and taken to their homes the police. Next morning the parents received a letter of warning from the inspector of police, and further offences were followed by more drastic measures. Although the law had been in- operation in many since 1892 there had been only one arrest made yet. The warning had been sufficient and the public immediately recognised the value of the law. There was an alarming amount of immorality among our young people, and he thought the tune was ripe for the adoption of that curfew law.(Hear, hear, and applause.). Mrs W. H. Reynolds said that girls were being (educated on such a high scale now that they despised domestic duties. The tendency of the age was lavishness and extravagance. It should be compulsory for children to bo sent to a kindergarten where they learned to use their eyes and hands. Domestic duties should be compulsorily taught to girls in the public schools. Our girls knew nothing whatever about cooking and cleaning and sowing. They went into a factory and roamed about afterwards. She was one of those who had fought to have the Town Belt cleared up—not swept away, but beautified and made safe. She had been at a meeting of specialists in England, who corroborated all the chairman had quoted about the sterilisation of the unfit, and she believed we had arrived at a stage when that was necessary. Mr D. Wright spoke of the deep shame and humiliation with which he read the revelations made in the report. There were many things about which they ought to be greatly ashamed and alarmed. The members of the society were not cranks nor faddists nor theorists nor dreamers, but entirely practical, sane, and sound. He believed they had the sympathies of the people of Dunedin with them.

The motion was carried unanimously. The election of office-bearers the ensuingl year resulted aa follows: —President, Canon Curzon-Siggers: vice-presidents—

Mrs W. H. Reynolds and Mr J. M. Gallaway; committee—the Mayor (Mr W. Burnett), Mesdames E. Witners, Gordon, R. Ewen, Jackson, Dr Siedeberg. Revs. W, Slade, Vincent King, E. A. Axelsen, Adjutant Tweed', Messrs F. Gumming, and Duncan Wright; hon. medical officer, Dr Siedeberg; hon. solicitors—Messrs A. S. Adams, H. D. Bedford, R. Gilkison, and J. B. Callan; hoii. treasurer, Dr Siedeberg.