An Appalling Waste of Children.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3, 20 January 1906, Page 42

An Appalling Waste of Children.

There is still an appalling waste of little Australians. Sydney got a shock the other day. just when it was getting ready to eat its Christmas fowl, by reading that of every seven firstborn, one had a mother who didn’t own a wedding-ring; and these little Australians, who haven’t done anything w rung that they know of, have just about three times more chances of ceasing to be little Australians than the other kiddy who hasn’t done anything to deserve any better treatment. It is-a striking fact that it is when times are hardest that the fatherless youngster dies in the largest numbers—• very strong proof that he dies because he hasn’t enough to eat or to wear. In New South Wales, between 1899 and 1903. which, on the whole, wernen’t prosperous years. 279 per 1000 of the little Australian- whose mothers wore no wedding-ring were snuffed out yearly, on the average, before they had had their first birthday; last year, when the competition for food and clothes wasn’t, so keen, the rate was only 192 per 1000. In the last five years 4108 of the-e children died before they were a year old; while if they hadn’t died at any greater rate than the other ones who don't deserve any better treatment, there would have been only 1520 deaths. AVhjeh means that New South Wales had 2580 immigrants which it might have kept if it had provided the means to keep them; but as it. didn’t a kind motherly person took them, and now they are buried. And the chances are a good many more are buried that the Government Statistician doesn’t know anything about.