PRISON BABIES.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12766, 7 February 1910, Page 4

PRISON BABIES.

. In England only babies of less than nine months are allowed to remain with^crimiuar.motheirs in gaol, those infants find in their prison home more luxury thaai tlhey axe likely to met with during any other part of tdieir child life. The first prison creche in *he world was opened at HoEoway gaol. So great was its success that similar creches we're instituted at Liverpool, Manchester, and Durham — the idea being that a baby is to be treated as a State guest while a; guilty parent is working out her sentence during the day, but that mother and child should be •happily re-united at might. A recent visitor • inspecting Holloway gaol, found twenty-three infants in the day ' nursery "all of them having a rollicking good time." The day's routine of breakfasts, baths, . and consign>- : ment to morning sleeps, is conducted pleasantly by wardresses, who find attendance on the babies an agreeable chamge from, their strict duty towards tho grown-ups. Every possible comfort is provided, including a big rag doll, a furry golliwog, and a huge baS for each child and two Persian kittens furnish additional amusement when required. "In the summer, when tihe weather is fine, a large tent is pitched in the prison garden, and hero the babies he on warm, dry blanktes enjoying a perpetual sun bath, until nurse takes them in to tea and their evening adulfcions." At five o'clock the mother is allowed to claim her infant, and she retires to rather a medified .prison cell. "There besides the plamk bed of his parent stands a tiny -cot for baby, with a nice little bed made up inside, and covered by a blue and white check counterpane, devoid, be it noted, of the broad arrow of shame." Close to th^e hand, there is an . electric bell, by which, she can summon at any moment, a nurse who -remains on night duty in case illness should occur : and if a baby should show any signs of departing from the normal, he is sent into hospital at once, while tho mother, instead of following (her usual tasks, is admitted as an honorary patient, ,too. The abnormal "forwardnessi" of many infants, howeyeir, has ceased to trouble the official mind. Babies having to take their ticket-of-leave at nine months, the prisoner, natmrally, begins by arranging the date of birth to suit the occasion; and when a six months' sentence is in prospect, it is surprising what finely-grown specimens are entered on the creche roll as precisely three months old. "A woman hopes, in this way to keep her infant all the time. To the credit 'of the prison officials it is said that she rarely fails to achieve her purpose."