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Newspaper Page Text
i u ui ill !f"ll'PjWPP!PPW NOBODY LOVES OR WANTS A GOOD MANY OF THE CHILDREN IN THE WORLD the man with whom her husband has By Jane Whitaker What a lot of children there are in the world thatsiQbody loves and no body wants. " If you go into the county court on the day when dependent cases are tried your heart will sicken at the repetition of cases, so very similar, where adults "haggle about having to support little ones and often the little ones look on with wide eyed wonder, feeling in their little minds and hearts that somewhere there is a big injustice and placing it perhaps at the very gate of life that sent them here, unwelcome, and gave them no chance to escape. A grandfather has been ordered to pay for the support of the baby girl of his son who has run away, leaving the mother dependent. He pays for a little while and in the meantime the mother of the child marries. She does not herself con tribute to the support of her child. She places it with her mother and depends on the paternal grandparent to pay the maternal grandmother. The grandfather decides that the second husband of the child's mother should support the child and he takes the matter back into court and asks to- be relieved of any further burden" or if he is not relieved, to be given custody of the child, jso that he may keep it on less than the $2 a week he has been ordered to pay by the court. You leave the county court with a great pity in your heart for the un wanted baby girl and you go into the court of domestic relations. Here there is a squabble about the support of three children. The fa ther says he will not support them while they are in the custody of the mother. The mother says she will keep them with her. The father makes charges against her character and Judge Sabath orders an investi gation. The case is continued and the mother leaves the courtroom with charged she is intimate. Shortly she returns. Whether she dreads investigation or whether it is,.- merely that she uoesn t care, she says she is satisfied to give her three chil dren to the father and, this settled, she once more leaves the court hold ing the arm of the man for whom she gave up the care and guidance of thp babies she brought into the world. You leave there with some of your ideal of motherhood shattered and you go into the juvenile court, and here, in the court of tears, chil dren's tears, you loiter but a little while, for your heart will not stand the pain of erring baby things" cling ing to their parents, not realizing that their parents have decided to let the state take the burden of the chil dren's support You go into the boys' court Two lads, one 16 and one 17, have been arrested for breaking into a barn. They say they went there to sleep. The one of 17 has the expression of a man who knows life. There is not a lingering trace of boyhood. The world has grappled with him and he has grappled with the world and he hasn't much respect or love for it "I came here from Kansas City," he says. "I was hunting a job. I met this fellow. He told me we would sleep in the barn. I haven't 'any money, ain't had for three days." "Where are your parents?" Judge! Dolan asks. "Haven't any," laconically. "Me" mother died when I was two and me father five years ago." "Haven't you any sisters or broth ers, or somebody to-look after you?" "Nope!" He is surprised that it, matters anyway. He is used to look- ing out for himself. If they lock btrn up? Well, nobody cares and he doesn't care, either. He won't ask any mercy. "Discharged," says the judge. "We'