Poor but Affectionate.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXV, Issue 5549, 5 March 1914, Page 3

Poor but Affectionate.

A PITIABLE CASE

A WOMAN AND HER CHILDREN

Received 6.5 p.m., 4th. London, March 4

As a result of a charge laid by the Society for the Protection of Children, a widowed charwoman was sentenced to six months' imprisonment a fortnight ago. She was alleged to have occupied a dark, (ireless room in Clerkenweli, with three barely cloth«d, starving children, bordering on idiocy. All were fed with broken victuals, which the woman took home. The magistrate described the case as one of medieval barbarity. The case was referred to yesterday in the House of Lords by Lord Seiborne.who Baid he had ueen informed that the children were really well fed. The mother, who was earning 20s weekly, could not, however, buy clathes and send them to school, and she knew that discovery meant prosecution for overcrowding and the separation of her children when found. If this story were true, it was a most piteous case. The Archbishop of Canterbury contended that the law did not compel Boards of Guardians to break up homes.