Waterbury Democrat., 1901-07-17
HOME FOR THE DESTITUTE.
selectmen's Office Place to Learn the
 Need of One.

After all, those who claim that Wa terbury ought to have home for des- titute children are not wide of the mark. So many children come into the selectmen's office and the city court from time to time who have no one to care for them and are sent to the colln- ty home or taken in charge by people who may not always give them prop CT training, that it would seem a good work for the churches to have insti. tutlonS where these little ones could be cared for until such time as they could be given out to suitable parties. In the rush all excitement incident to the disposition of children who are sud- denly thrown upon the world it is of ter extremely difficult to know what Is best to do for them, and on this ac- count families are often separated rarely ever to come together again un- der the same roof. We have a large number of public spirited citizens in Waterbury who give IiDeIally from tlme to time for the maint:linance of charitable institutions of this kind in other parts of the country while many little boys and girls are sadly in need of attention at their own doors. For the past few weeks Catholics are send ing small sums to houses in New York and other places where homeless chil- dren are looked after and while the amount given by each is not large still the aggregate would make up quite a nice sum and if turned towards .s- tablishing a home for destitute chil- dren i'll Waterbury would be a great blessing to many a poor woman whom necessity compes to turn her offspring over to the authorities. The same thing is true of other denominations. While this is highly commendable work still many are of the opinion that it would be a good plan 10 make a comme1cenent along these lines at home. There are mothers and fathers. too, who are temporarily embarrassed for one reason or another and find themselves unable to keep their chil- dren together. but if they had some. suitable place here where they could leave their children for a time. they might soon be able to start up house keeping again and provide for their children. The situation is different when children are sent to the county hoIuC VI oOlllC OlhSI -OuL-Ul-IOWH 11SIl- tuition. In most cases parents set at random all hopes of getting them to- gether again and as a result the chill dren are burden upon others until they are able to earn their own living. There is another way of looking at too, such children lose interest in their par ents and in the end the latter are too often forced to spend their declining years in the almshouse while if the family had been kept together they might have made a comfortable home for themselves and the old folks so that when death comes the family would be spared the humiliation of see ing those who have been called to their reward tucked away in the rear room Of some undertaking establishment the night before their bodies are consigned to mother earth. Probably this scheme might not be practical in town of this size, but be this as it may there is d
 lot of good people about town who think it is and would like to see some l Of the churches make a move in that direction and believe that if one start ed all the rest would soon realize the importance of getting into line as | quickly as possible.