THE CHILD IN THE MIDST.

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 306, 18 December 1920, Page 1

THE CHILD IN THE MIDST.

“Suffer little children to come unto Me, ami forbid them not. for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” So said the Man of Nazareth over 11*00 years ago. How beautiful the tenderness with which He rebuked the disciples. who thought that a child was quite beneath the notice of the Great Teacher. Not so did the Christ appreciate values. fte set the child in the midst and denounced the greatest woes upon the man who should offend one of these little ones. If any of m> readers wish to know how closely this Christian land of ours has approached the ideal of the Maafer, let them visit the Police Courts of our Dominion, and listen to the gruesome stories of revolting cruelty to the child, to the feeble-minded girl, unable to protect herself, which are retailed there. Occasionally one hears refreshing truths from the lips of officials, as when Magistrate McCarthy denounced the wickedness of a woman livir.g with a drunken, dissolute husband, and bringing into the world children cursed with such an heredity. But the Magistrate does not make the laws, he only administers them, and our laws are not framed to protect the child; ra.her do they shield the unspeakable ruffian who offends “one of these little ones.’ Many and varied are the causes for which different countries allow a marriage to be dissolved. But there's one logical, scientific, and moral reason for which a marriage should l>e dissolved, and that is tin* unfitness of either party for healthy parenthood. Ever> child hus

the right to Im* wi ll born, a right denied it if either parent is drunken or dissolute. Those people who so glibly quote "What Coil has joined together hi not man put asunder,” should seriously ask themselves, Does Cod join together the drunkard, the libertine of either sex, to become the parents of children who, in the words of General Booth, are "damned into the world”? The woman who lives with an evil man, allowing him to become the father of her children, commits a deadly sill against those children, and merits the condemnation pronounced b> the Saviour upon those who “offend one of these little ones." Those whom Cod has joined together to share withJlim His great, grand work of creation, do not desire to be put asunder; they grow ever nearer to each other and to their Father God; their children grow up around them an honour to their parents and a valuable asset to their native land. Such homes as those described in Burns’ "Cottar's Saturday Night arc the saving health of our Nation. But the most tragic cases in our Courts centre around the child of unmarried parents, for such an one is always an unwanted child. We commented upon a case of this kind recently in Hawera, .and now from Napier comes another most pathetic case. A young woman, motherless, and so feeble in intellect that already twice she has been, the victim of evil men and the mother of their unwanted children. Now approaches a third time of trial. The women on the farm watch her, note her condition, but, with a callousness passing belief, they give her no

woid of sympathy, make her no offer of help. Alone, in the silent hours of the night, she goes through her ordeal of suffering, her child dies from lack of the proper care which she could not give, and the otln r women were too unfeeling to offer. She goes out at 1 a.m. into the milking shed. The lynxeyed mistress of the farm observes her, and instituting a search, diocovers the* dead body of the child. She at once sends for the police, that the victim of man's inhumanity may Ik* yet further punished for a crime which the misHess might have prevented by a timely offer of help. In the Court where the girl stood upon her trial for manslaughter, the counsel very pertinently asked, “Where is the man?” We hope this question started in the Courthouse will be whispered in the home, talked about in the drawingroom. discussed at women's societties and clubs, thundered upon the plattforms in every city of this Dominion until an ever-increasing chorus it makes the welkin ring, and rouses up the drowsy occupants of our Ministerial benches in the sacred precincts of Parliament House itself. May its echoes keep them wide awake long enough to amend the law which permits the partner of the “stronger sex” to go scot free while the weaker partner in a dual sin bears all the suffering, the shame anil the nunishment. We had it on good authority that "the law is a hass.” and in the matter of the guardianship of children its provisions are decidedly assinic. Until quite recenttly the married mother had no right to her own child,

it belonging, by law, so absolutely to her husband that he could will away from a mother her unborn child. Yet at the same time it placed upon the unmarried mother all care and responsibility for her child as though it had no father. The law is being amended slowly along both lines. We want to quicken up the process. With married couples each should have equal rights in the child and l>e its co-guardians, while the unmarried father should be made to share an equal responsibility for the care of his child. “Inmanied fat hers did we say? Alas the pity and the sin of it! Too many of them arc married men often old enough to be the fathers of the poor gills whom they betray and then leave to their fate. Wanted a I'eter the Hermit to preach a New Crusade. Or rather wanted our White Hibboners to start in every centre to bring about what our constitution asks for, “a white life for two.” It had need to be n Crusade with a triple objective. First to deal with the man. Ask that the law’ be amended so that it may act as a schoolmaster to brand upon the man’s conscience the responsibility of futlierhood. If a man by his act causes a new life to enter this world the law must insist that he make provision for that entry. Should he fail to do this and the child die because of this neglect, then tin* law must place him ill the dock beside the mother an equal partner in the sin and equally worthy of punishment. Then we must deal in sympathy with the feeble-minded girl. She cannot protect herself, and her sister-women who are strong must insist that the law protects her. Not to shut ht r up behind prison bars as a criminal or even to place her in so good a place as the Salvation Army Hoipe. No, she should be placed in a far farm colony where she can work in wholesome healthy surroundings, cared for and protected from the human wolves that prey upon such feeble-minded ones. In dealing with these feebleminded mothers and evil designing fathers we shall avoid the necessity for dealing with the children for they will not be here. One cannot but wonder that men who are so particular in the breeding of their cows, sheep and horses will yet allow their own children to be born from drunken,

dissolute or even idiot mothers. Oh! the deadly sins committed against the children. We ought to create such a Public Opinion in our small Dominion that the parent of the unwanted child, be that parent married or single, should be “pilloried upon Infamy’s high stage." Surely we are not of those who can “consent to hear with quiet pulse of loathsome deeds like these.” We have passed resolutions, sent deputations to tlie Ministers of Justice and “goth nothing.” S 4 ill the abuse goes on. Still our legislators refuse to protect the children and girls of the land. Now we must insist. So many voters can surely bring sufficient pressure upon our M.P’s. to get the law amended. As the Master listens to the continually ascending cry of these poor weaklings, He turns reproachfully to us, who will not insist upon protection for them, and says so tenderly, :-o lovingly, and yet so firmly: “Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these my sisters ye did it not to me.”