FEEBLE-MINDED GIRLS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14347, 27 October 1910, Page 2

FEEBLE-MINDED GIRLS.

A DIFFICULT PROBLEM. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Oct. 26. The problem in connection with the work of such organisations as St. Mary’s Homos at Otahubu was referral to iii the 'annual report on tho Ironies presented to the Auckland Anglican Svnod this afternoon by tho chairman ol the committee of management. 'Jho Rev. Canon Mao Murray, in tho report, stated: “Tho future of tho feebleminded girls of the community who drift into our homes and who provide almost all our cases of failure is a very serious problem, which is greatly exercising tho minds of the authorities in England at tho present time, and deserves the thoughtful attention of all interested in the well-being of national life. In this Dominion a feebleminded woman may have six or eight •feeble-minded illegitimate children quite incapable of taking care of themselves, and who in turn become the parents of a now generation of degenerate and feeble-minded offspring, each one a burden on tho State. What are wo to do with such girls when their six months’ probation is over? Wo know they arc unfit to go out into the world unguarded, and yet we cannot keel) thorn permanently in St. Mary’s? Surely the State ought to provide a home for such cases. The not cost for maintenance would not ho very gre.at, as such girls could bo usefully and profitably employed in laundry work. It is owing to tho neglect of such people through many generations that England is burdened with a vast army of feeble-minded paupers who are incapable of rising out of pauperism, a result which may be prevented in a young country like New Zealand if the problem be dot.lt with without delay.”