The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-07-18
MONEY IN INFANTS.
But Only When They Die, In This
Business.
LIFE INSURANCE OF THE BABES.
MOre Particulars About It-NO Doubt
That 1t Sometimes Leads the Way

More Particulars About It-NO Doubt
That 1t Sometimes Leads the Way
to Crime.
It would require large number of
days to search out and enumerate the
several hundred children in Topeka on
whose lives have been placed premium
by the practice of five cents a week in
surance. Many children are so insured
who have good homes and we'll to do
parents but there are many more in the
city among class of people who would
not hesitate to do anything for money if
they could successfully escape the
clutches of the law; people who we i be
glad of even So that would elieve them O
the responsibility of picking up cast
away food in the alleys and barrels for
few days and it is a very easy matter
when there is need of money and
greater need of conscience to simply
neglect sick child and escape a charge
of murder.
On Lawrence street lives a divorced
woman. In the family is bright eyed,
handsome boy of ten, ragged and perhaps
not overly we'll kept, but insured.
On East First street lives in not superb
apartments another divorced wife with
her little six-year-old daugher, pretty
little black eyed child and nicely
dressed. This woman is well known in
police circles and has been arrested as
disorderly character. The child is in
sured
Another family is reported near Tenth
and the Santa Fe tracks with four chill
dren under ten years of age, all insured.
! The family was very poor indeed.
Near Fifteenth and Chandler lives a
! family, some members of which have
been in police court for disorderly con-
duet and for stealing. They have three
children and are very poor, Two of the
children, boys aged and II. ragged and
| i'll fed, are insured.
! A widow who was supported largely
| by charity last winter, has seven or eight
children and many of them are insured.
! She lives on East Eighth street across
the railroad tracks
Ina grove in Parkdale family named
Lynch lives. Its members are very poor
and the woman has been in police court
in times gone by charged with being a
disorderly character. There are two
boys in the family, aged 8 and 10, ragged
and dirty, but insured.
Before the district on the lower end of
Kansas avenue that was referred to by
the police as Smoky Row. became sc
depopulated of its disreputable inhabi-
| tants. through continued police raids,
almost every one of the ragged. dirty
miserable children of miserable parents
there was insured. On the lower streets
lust north of the river are dozens oil
children, white and colored, who are in.
sured by the same plan. Down in the
district east of the Santa Fe shops are
| many more On east First street and on
Crane the same conditions prevail
South of Thirteenth on Van Buren, street
many children are insured.
The only company in Topeka just now
that handles that class of insurance il
the Metropolitan Life of New York. A
JOURNAL reporter talked with MIR. Her
ron, the assistant superintendent in To-
peka. last evening and he said:
"We have been doing business in To-
peka since May, 1894, and today our col
iections in the city amount to $3.50 q
week. Considering that the premiums
will average weekly ten cents you can
see that we have in the neighborhood OF
IL 500 policies in Topeka. 1t would be q
difficult matter to ascertain the number
of children this number includes, be-
cause We would have to 90 over those