The Eternal Love for Children - "How Can They Be So Cruel?"-how the Inspectors Work - The Warning Note - A Harsh Stepfather - The Blind Mother's New Home

The millstrun theory of the greatest teacher of all time in its application to "whoso shall offend against one of these little ones" was associated with the definite assertion

Two children as found by the N.s.p.c.c.

that it was not the will of the Great Father ..that one of these little ones should perish."

The Eternal Love for Children

Through all the ages have these words lived. Love for offspring has throbbed in the parental bosom of man and beast. Those who have watched the cat nurturing its kittens, or the bird feeding its downy young, find it difficult indeed to understand the brutality of unnatural parents which the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has since 1884 been vigorously fighting. Sad, indeed, it is that a society should be required to step in between child and parent. Yet it is matter for congratulation that a society exists which the 150,000 children a year from the leash of the tormentor and the neglect of the brute who would starve his children. "How Can They be so Cruel?"

The mother who surveys her pretty little child held focussed at arms length, who is thrilled with the force of her affection as two tiny, soft fists are thrust into her face; and then who, kissing the velvety and tender cheek, hugs her offspring to her bosom, her eyes Welling over with tears from the fulness of her emotions, suffers untold revulsion when she hears of cruelty to children. More than that, her own humanity will prevent her from believing the ghastly stories contained among the records of the N.s.p.c.c.

"How can people be so cruel?" asks the tender parent, and she hugs her own loved child the closer to her, lest some fiend of the imagination should snatch at it.

There are, unfortunately, parents of 150,000 children discovered every year in England guilty of the grossest cruelty to their offspring. Not only, indeed, does the brutality exist, but it is in some cases so persistent that punishment of the severest kind seems incapable of killing the brute behind the man. Here, for example, are the bald facts of such a case:

The same children a month later

Two children of a man and wife died. When a third child was four months old,

World Of Women the man ill-treated it, and Was sentenced to four months' imprisonment. The little nature struggled against its unnatural surroundings for life, growing pale and sickly, as a plant that thrusts its stems into the darkness. But when it was one year and seven months old its father ill-treated it again, and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. While he Was in prison the child died from the effects of the ill-usage it had received. Its father (he dishonours the word) was charged with manslaughter, and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. On a legal point, however, the sentence Was disallowed, and the father released.

Another child came to own him as father. When it was six months old it cried, babylike, whilst being put to bed. The father struck the baby in the face. Three days later, at bedtime, he struck the tiny wayfarer across the eyes, blackening both of them. The next day he hit the baby in the back with his clenched fist As a result of this savagery, he Was sentenced to a further six months.

With such inhuman prodigies in the World, little wonder that the N.s.p.c.c., founded by the Rev. Benjamin Waugh in 1884, has found its ready hands full. The powerful position to which this society has grown may be gathered from the fact that, whereas in its first year 95 cases were dealt With by one inspector, in 1909-10, 52,670 cases Were dealt with by 250 inspectors. The full income in 1884 Was 903, Whilst in 1909-10 it was 76,800.

How The Inspectors Work

Inspectors of the society do not keep their posts by securing prosecutions. Indeed, they are kept fully occupied in attending to cases with which the public acquaint them.

People knowing of assault, ill-treatment, neglect, abandonment, or exposure of any children in a manner likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to their health, should communicate immediately with the Director, N.s.p.c.c., Leicester Square, London, W.c. All necessary steps will be taken and expenses borne by the society. The informant's name is kept strictly private, except in cases, fortunately infrequent, where malice is proved. The society's methods of work, by which it has protected over 1,631,000 children, are simple.

When information is received of a child needlessly suffering, the question to be settled is not, can the offender be prosecuted; it is, by what means can the suffering be best stopped.

The Warning Note

The society's inspectors call and warn the parents, and in many cases the object of the society is then fully realised. Sometimes the society undertakes the prosecution of parents, and often the result of punishment is so salutary that ultimately, out of the lowest hovel of starvelings arises a decent dwelling in which the children have good beds, fair meals, and no oppression. In cases of prosecution the society undertakes the care of the children and the supervision of them after release of the parents. In such cases the youngsters are boarded out by the N.s.p.c.c. in approved homes, the society paying all costs.

One case presents an extremely sad story. The mother was a blind woman; the stepfather, earning 25s. a week, gave his children for ten weeks threepence a day to live on, spending the rest in drink. .One child, Lily, aged thirteen, was in the infirmary; another, Ada (aged eleven), was at home. The mother had received no money from the stepfather for two months.

The inspector, acting upon this information, found that the little girl, Lily, was suffering from consumption, and that the poor blind mother and the child Ada were dependent for bare necessities on the charity of friends, the stepfather having left them.

The Blind Mother's New Home

The inspector caused the stepfather to return, and at the expense of infinite pains brought about great improvement in the home. The following Christmas, Lily - now out of the infirmary - and Ada were in\ited to join in a happy tea party of 200 children in Which the society was interested. Now things in their home were going well. A visitor would not have recognised it for the same place. The inspector had no longer any need to visit the home, but being in the neighbourhood two years later, he called at the house, and the blind mother, recognising the voice of the man whose good work had wrought such a change in her life, asked, as she opened the door:

" Is that the inspector ? I am glad to hear your voice again, sir ! "

His mind reverting to the little girl who had been in the infirmary, he asked:

" How is Lily, mother ? "

With a catch in her voice, the sign of a great sorrow, and with her poor sightless eyes fixed on his face, the mother said:

"Lily is in heaven, sir."

"Ah ! " replied the officer. " How long has she been there ? "

A moment's tense silence.

Then came the mother's reply, in a voice subdued by indescribable grief:

"She went in July, 1899, sir. She often talked about you before she died, and about the tea and the presents she got."

The woman's voice trailed off into a husky whisper as she added:

"May God always bless you for your kindness to us, and when you are passing, do not go by, but call in and speak to me, for the sake of my little girl."

The inspector's voice was husky as he bade them good-bye. He had just lived through a moment which he could never forget, and the words of the Master appeared to a tear-dimmed sight, words of joy gleaming from a tablet of glory: "Suffer little children to come unto Me."

In our next article in Part 3 of Every Woman's Encyclopædia, we shall show how the great work of child saving may be helped forward by women.