A Difficult Problem

Southland Times, Issue 18062, 4 February 1903, Page 3

A Difficult Problem

The case of the destitute young woman (now such cause of concern to tlie Wellington Benevolent Trustees) who is about to become the mother of a second illegitimate child is (says the Post) difficult of satisfactory settlement. On the occasion of the birth of her 2r«L child she was sheltered and tended at the j Maternity Home of the Salvation Army, ! but the doors ' of that refuge ure now closed to nor for two reasons. The Horne — properly, as we think — does not undertake to receive a woman a second time under such circumstances, and in this particular case there is no desire to waive the rule in favour of a j-erson who, when an inmate of the Home, proved intractable and unruly. The Salvation Army, therefore, will not receive? the woman and the Benevolent Trustees have no place to which she may bo sent: while to give her money or dispose her in special lodgings and provide n.edical i attendance and comforts would l'O, to put it plainly offering a premium to prostitution, and there is too much encouragement given to that Torm of immorality by charitable institutions already. ' In the South Island, for instance, there is a philanthropic ii.btitution to which women of this class may go in turn whenever from the same" cause they are in need of refuge and i seclusion, and there procure the medical and nursing attendance that is denied by reason of their scant but honest means, to many estimable married women. In one case that has come under our lvotice, a woman hutl borne six children- by as many fathers, ex cording to her own account, and on each occasion this common strumpet was nursand tended with as much care and more skill than would, in all probability, have been bestowed upon her had she been a decent married woman. Surely such institutions must le in too many cases but seed-plots ot postitu-l-tion, and yet ma,ny of the esMinable ladies who, for tho raost l«ur\, are responsible for their existence, ore the sworn foes of the Uo-ntatfious leases Act, which if put m opuratiin would be the surest and -tiOSt Salutary cherk ipon the relationst hat result in miscellaneous illegitimate chil'lrcn.