She said: "I cannot bear to have my little one buried without a word of prayer." She also said: "I shall always be a better woman for little David." She testified her gratitude repeatedly by sending gifts to the Society.

In cases where it is necessary for the mother to be separated from the child, it is often beneficial to encourage her to provide for the expense of the handling and placing of the child rather than to throw it into the arms of the charitable public. But this is a delicate matter, for it tends to create the impression that illegitimate children can be disposed of for a financial consideration and to justify the nefarious traffic of the baby farms in human flesh. For this reason some of the best child-placing organizations refuse to receive money with such children. If they receive them at all, it is without compensation from the mother or her friends.

It is the practice of the Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society, first, to determine the question whether it ought to receive the child, independent of the question whether any money is to be paid or not; secondly, to ascertain whether the mother, father or other friends desire to or are able to provide for the expense of receiving and placing the child. Many mothers are unwilling to make their child an object of charity and are desirous to meet the expense, as a matter of self-respect. While the Society encourages parents to meet the expense, if practicable it will receive a child just as readily without money as with it, and will refuse a child which ought not to be received just as promptly when money is offered as when it is not.

It is impossible to lay down arbitrary rules to govern the treatment of these young mothers. When you deal with human souls, they must be dealt with individually according to the best light that can be obtained in each individual case.

We have no right to deal harshly with those who are already under the Divine discipline; neither have we the right to interfere lightly with the Creator's methods of training and redeeming his erring children.

The third party to be considered is the father of the child. It is almost a universal rule that while he is the chief offender, he suffers least of all. It is surprising how readily his friends lend themselves to efforts to relieve him of his obligation and just penalty. These efforts are ably seconded by the friends of the mother with the physician, hospital authorities and nurses, who, in their anxiety to protect the good name of the mother, contribute at the same time to shield the father. These conditions are still further aided by the practice of the community, which condones the offense of the man, allowing him to maintain his place in society notwithstanding his cruel abandonment of the child and mother, who ought to be the objects of his penitent solicitude.

Those who have to do with the illegitimate child fail lamentably of their duty unless an earnest effort is made to bring the father to account.

In many cases a marriage should take place, even though the young people should not live together. It is as little reparation as can be offered for a man to give his name to his own child and to its mother.

Not long ago an agent of the Children's Home and Aid Society was consulted by a young man, a son of a well-to-do-farmer. He said: "I want you to provide for a child three months old. I want to have it well provided for, and will cheerfully pay into the society treasury $200 in consideration of that service." On inquiry the agent learned that the farmer was the grandfather of the child. Owing to a land dispute a feud had grown up between him and a neighbor. The son of one family loved the daughter of the other, but the angry parents would not consent to the marriage. Their opposition gave rise to an illicit relation from which came the child. The agent was a wise and conscientious man. He labored with the grandfather nearly all one night, until he was brought to acknowledge that he had been in the wrong. Sim

ilar efforts brought a like confession from the neighbor. The two men were reconciled; the one purchased a farm for his son in a western state; the other contributed to stocking the farm and furnishing the house. The young people were married and are living happily with their little one in a community where their history is not known.

If the father of the child is unwilling to be married, or if, as is often the case, the circumstances are such that a marriage is impracticable, he should be compelled to make such provision as his means will allow, both for the mother and the child. But in practice comparatively few fathers are brought to make such provision. The mother is deterred from taking legal steps, sometimes on account of affection for the father, more often on account of her unwillingness to subject her own name and that of her family to the ignominy which attends bastardy proceedings. The very name of these proceedings carries a bitter stigma, both to herself and to her child. The young father often, through friends or through some lawyer, proposes a nominal settlement whereby she receives perhaps $20 or $50 instead of the $550 to which the law entitles her.

In such cases the mother should be advised to secure the counsel and assistance of some good lawyer of mature years. Such a lawyer, by the use of vigorous pressure, can often secure some adequate provision for the mother and child without the necessity for public court proceedings. Under the vigorous handling of such a lawyer the young man can be made to bear some small share of the suffering which is incident to his wrongdoing.

If the father cannot be reached by this method, then, if possible, he should be made to feel the strong arm of the law. The mother and her friends often owe it as a duty to the community to prosecute the offender. This is true especially where he is known to have debauched other young girls or in cases where he has sought to escape the consequences of his wrongdoing by marriage with another woman.

It may be laid down as a general principle not only that the man in the case deserves punishment, but that his punishment is one of the most hopeful methods of preventing the multiplication of these sad cases.

The fourth party to be considered is the community, including the parents and friends of the offenders and the multitudes of other young people who are exposed to like temptation. It is peculiarly true of this form of wrongdoing that the innocent suffer with the guilty. The parents whose good name is dragged in the dust and who suffer, not only shame, but agonies of anxiety for their children, are much to be pitied; yet it must be remembered that in many cases they have a large responsibility for the results which they discover with such astonishment. Fathers who neglect to instruct their sons as to the responsibilities and dangers of young manhood; mothers who allow their daughters to go about with young men of whom they know nothing and who fail to maintain the confidence and sympathy of their daughters ought not to be too much surprised at the natural result of their shortcomings.

Be this as it may, parents have no right to turn their daughters out of doors or to send them to a distant lying-in hospital, to be subjected to maltreatment of charlatans or knaves, or perhaps to sacrifice their lives in criminal efforts to escape the consequences of wrongdoing. Still less is it right for parents to shield a son and dissuade or prevent him from following the right instinct which urges him to do a manly part toward the partner of his fault.

Physicians have a grave responsibility, which they often fail to meet. It is the physician whose advice is sought and usually taken. It is the physician who arranges to send the girl away. It is the physician who explains how the child can be easily disposed of. It is the physician who pervents the young mother from nursing her child, and who perhaps prevents her from seeing it lest she should have a mother's feeling for it. It is the physician

who persuades the mother to board the child in a baby farm, where it will be starved and neglected, in order to accept a place as wet nurse at $10 or $12 per week. Thousands of babies have been sacrificed in order that children of wealth might enjoy the mother's milk which properly belonged to them. This wrongdoing is particularly heartless because experience has shown that a healthy mother can furnish milk enough for her own child and that of another without risk to either; the lack in quantity being supplied by cow's milk. The sacrifice of the natural child thus becomes a matter of convenience and cannot possibly be excused. It is freely admitted that this whole subject is one beset by difficulties and one which taxes the wisdom and conscience of the wisest social student; but it rightly demands our careful study and the faithful performance of our obligation. When one contemplates the multitude of young women, timid, inexperienced, shamefaced, driven into the maelstrom of this great city by the coldness of their friends and the hostility of their native community when one considers the sufferings through which they pass, alone and forsaken; the perils to which they are exposed with no sufficient counselor; the perpetual stream of these poor creatures pouring into the houses of prostitution to become bondwomen, doomed to a brief life of misery and an early and forgotten grave, his heart is stirred with a desire to do some small part in redeeming them from their sad fate and restoring them to a happy and womanly life.

When one has to deal with numbers of little children who have come into life handicapped by an ill name, a weak physique, and an inherited weakness of character, he feels that it is worthy of the best effort of the best science to secure for these innocent and unfortunate children those safeguards and benefits which are enjoyed by their little neighbors who are so fortunate as to be more happily born.

Human Life in Kentucky

Is It as Valuable as That of a Hog?

cough and tired feeling, prescribed bitters made of alcohol, water and gentian. This gave her false strength for a while, for it checked out her little reserve. When hemorrhage occurred, she and all her neighbors knew she had consumption and the doctor should have known it and told her months before.

Now she wrote to the State Board of Health and said: “I am told that consumption in its early stages can be cured by outdoor life, .continued rest, and plenty of plain, good food. I do not want to die. I want to live and raise my children to make them good citizens. Where can I go to get well?" The reply was: "The great Christian state of Indiana has not yet risen to the mighty economy of saving the lives of little mothers from consumption. At present the only place where you can go is a grave. However, the state will care for your children in an orphan asylum after you are dead, and then in a few years a special officer will be paid to find a home for them. But save your life-never. That is a cranky idea, for a member on the floor of the Sixty-first Assembly said so. 'Besides,' said he, it isn't business. The state can't afford it.' So the little mother died of the preventable and curable disease, the home was broken up and the children were taken to the orphan asylum."

A big fat hog one morning found he had a pain in his belly. He squealed loudly and the farmer came out of his house to see what was the matter. "He's got the hog cholera," said the hired man. So the farmer telegraphed Secretary Wilson of the United States Agricultural Department, (who said that day he had 3,000 experts in animal and plant disease), and the reply was: "Cert., I will send you a man right away." Sure enough the man came. He said he was a D. V. S., and he was, too. He had a government syringe and a bottle of government medicine in his handbag, and he went for the hog. It got well. It wasn't cranky for the government to do this, and it could afford the expense, for the hog could be turned into ham, sausage, lard and bacon. Any boy, even a fool, can see it would be cranky for the state to save the life of a little mother, and it could not afford it, either.

The Kentucky Legislature failed to pass a measure providing a State Sanatorium for persons suffering from tuberculosis in Kentucky, though the State Board of Health estimates that there are probably 30,000 cases of this disease now existing in Kentucky and has shown that, in spite of the large amount of money annually being spent because of it, the death rate has not decreased and Kentucky stands now among the two or three greatest sufferers in the Union from the disease. The Legislature passed, but the Governor vetoed, an appropriation for aiding private tuberculosis sanatoria.

The Legislature passed, however, and the Governor did not veto, bills appropriating $2,000 annually to provide a hog cholera serum, and $5,000 annually to prevent the spread of communicable diseases among animals.

This record makes the following used in Indiana some time back seem most appropriate:

Young Mother and Fat Hog; Not a Fable; Simply Straight Goods.

One time a little mother, who was only twenty-five years old, began to feel tired all the time. Her appetite had failed her for weeks before the tired feeling came. Her three little girls, once a joy in her life, became a burden to her. It was "mamma, mamma," all day long. She never had noticed these appeals until the tired feeling came. The little mother also had red spots on her cheeks and a slight cough. One day, when dragging herself around, forcing her weary body to work, she felt a slight but sharp pain in her chest, her head grew dizzy and suddenly her mouth filled with blood. The hemorrhage was not severe, but it left her very weak. The doctor she had consulted for the

He Dug

He wanted a job and, like everyone else,

He wanted a good one, you know;

Where his clothes would not soil and his hands would keep clean,

And the salary musn't be low.

He asked for a pen but they gave him a spade
And he half turned away with a shrug,

But he altered his mind and, seizing the spade-he dug!
He worked with a will that is bound to succeed,

And the months and the years went along. The way it was rough and the labor was hard But his heart he kept filled with a song. Some jeered him and sneered at the task, but he

plugged

Just as hard as he ever could plug;

Their words never seemed to disturb him a bit-as

he dug.

The day came at last when they called for the spade
And gave him a pen in its place.

The joy of achievement was sweet to his taste
And victory shone on his face.

We can't always get what we hope for at first,
Success cuts many queer jigs,

But one thing is sure-a man will succeed-if he digs.
-Louis E. Thayer.

Chicago, like all other large cities whose inhabitants are of a ccsmopolitan character, has a large proportion of Italians within its gates. From the wealthy families of Italian bankers and merchants to the poorest laboring classes who live in the Italian Quarter, all go to make up the proportion of Italian residents of Chicago.

Many of us seem to have the impression that the Italian is of a lawless nature, especially so of those who have but lately come to our country from the south of Italy and Sicily. The same idea prevails as to the children but this impression is erroneous. Close inspection will show that the Italian children who live in our country are not as bad as we believe them to be.

The children of the Italian immigrant are far ahead of those of other nationalities who have migrated to America for better or worse. The last annual report of the Chicago Juvenile Court shows that out of a total of 1,252 delinquent boys but 102 were Italian; of a total of 464 delinquent girls but 16 were Italian. During the year, counting both delinquent and dependent children' there were 3,335 children in court, and of this total but 191 were Italian.

Among the different nationalities recorded, 623 were American, 476 German and 525 Polish the Italian being but fifth on the list. One would infer from the sensational stories printed by the newspapers that the Italians were lawless, in fact very undesirable. Of course it is true that some of them do not comprehend our mode of government and ofttimes take the execution of the law in their own hands.

Chicago has had its quota of so-called "Black Hand outrages."

The police nets are stretched and sometimes hundreds of the residents of the Italian quarter, known as "Little Italy," are rounded up to be searched and questioned by the officers of the law. These campaigns against the secret society methods of the Sicilian avail but little, and the police are generally no wiser after the roundup than before.

One wonders that these constant agitations in the Italian district do not cause and stimulate more delinquency upon the part of the children of the district than they do. The Italian youngster hears talks of vendettas, feuds, and secret organizations from babyhood up but still he does not become what we would justly term a bad boy, as a class.

Altogether, the children of the Italians, regardless of their national class distinction, are a well disciplined, thrifty and ambitious lot of youngsters.

Searching Italian Suspects

Old Man Darby Says:

"If sum peepul would pay as much attention to their kids as they do aworryin' over this here comet of Mr. Halley's, I reckon the fellows that run these juvenile korts would have to be put on half salary fer want of work. Carin' for our kids is more important than dodgin' shootin' stars, and when you git right down to bisnuss, its a danged sight lot more fun. Anyway, these taily stars of Mr. Halley's only pop up about every seventyfive years, and kids pop up every few minutes in this age of progression. It ain't any use tryin' to dodge either the kids or

Detained as "Black Hand" Suspects

the comets, but as the kids was here furst, let's wait on them furst."

There's a gift that is almost a blow, and there is a kind word that is municence; so much in the way of doing things.

Children generally hate to be idle. All the care then should be, that their busy humor should be constantly employed in something that is of use to them.-Locke.

The interests of childhood are the interests of mankind.
-Janes.

Idleness is the mother of all vice. If we consider only the effect of idleness on the children of a city the field is large enough. Who has not been saddened by seeing the boys and girls wandering through the streets, playing truant, hanging round the shops, begging for pennies or stealing from the stalls, pushing against each other and against the passers-by, crowding the book stalls and looking at obscene pictures, insulting women, picking pockets and boasting of it? Vagabondage, begging, stealing, prostitution, are only the first steps on the fatal road of idleness. As the child grows he becomes the adult criminal.

The chief cause of idleness and vagabondage in children is the lack of moral training in the home, the relaxing of family ties and want of proper parental supervision. Another cause is the neglect of schooling. In most civilized countries parents are compelled by law to keep their children in school a certain number of years. But in our larger cities there are not schools enough and where there are schools the law does not deal severely enough with parents who keep their children out of school. Again, the schools close too early in the day. The children are freed from them at four o'clock, while the parents do not get home from work till 7 or 8 in the evening. In that interval what are the children doing? They are running the street with all the evil consequences of that sort of life.

Then there are too many school holidays, when the children are turned loose though their parents are away at their daily work. Such days give great opportunity for vagabondage.

Still another reason is that the teachers sometimes forget that something besides scientific teaching is nécessary.. Is it not this fault in education which explains why we find in the young generation so many young people who have no moral curb, who respect no authority and who have an eye for nothing but an opportunity to gratify their own desires and caprices? Thus, being defrauded of proper guidance from parents and teachers, they are easily perverted, especially those barn of parents who are alcoholic, syphilitic, consumptive or with a feeble brain.

Another cause of idleness is the cupidity of parents who want to get their children into shops and factories as early as possible, that they may bring in a little money. In such shops and factories the work is monotonous and the pay small and the children desert them for the street. And if they accept the new life of industry in the factory they are often laid off in the dull seasons against their will and so fall into a life of idleness.

The very measures to protect child-laborers, especially in regard to hours of labor, have had the annoying and unexpected result of throwing them out of industry. Certain laws, like the French legislation, having decided that where minors and adults work together the hours for the latter must not be longer than for the former, employers have refused to hire juvenile workers at all, and so they are thrown out a prey to the idle life.

Each of these causes demands a remedy. One of the first is to provide a sufficient number of schools for all the children of school age, and where necessary guardian classes that shall keep those children whose parents are at work till their return. And little girls should be escorted to their homes when their parents can not come for them. Holidays should be reduced in number. Special classes for backward children should be formed. School colonies in the country should be organized, or by the sea, for delicate children. And finally the school should be not only a place for mental instruction, but for moral training; where the

mind should be instructed, and the conscience and the heart as well should be trained.

After school age the best thing would be apprenticeship to a trade if possible; otherwise there should be professional and industrial courses, for this is the most dangerous transition period, between going to school and finding permanent work for life. Later, in the mixed shops, where old and young work together, there should be a special arrangement of hours according to each category of workers.

When parents forfeit their parental rights so that they let the children drift into lives of vagabondage, idleness and vice the children should be taken away and sent to industrial schools, having no penal character, where they can be taught to earn their living.

It may be added that the police should exercise a more strict and careful guardianship on the streets and not allow children to form bands of idle loafers. Other persons also might be empowered to see that such children are looked after according to proper regulations, and perhaps it may be necessary to establish special courts for them.

Conclusions: The way to meet idleness and vagobondage in the large cities then is twofold: preventive and repressive. In the first group the means are educative and moral, with patience. They may be costly, but it is true economy.

As to the means by repression it should be by more active surveillance on the part of the police, charitable institutions and persons delegated to act in cases where society has to act in place of the family.

The following recommendations may be made:
Multiply the schools.

Give a large place to moral education."

Punish severely parents who break school obligations.

Multiply professional courses.