The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-08-22


rate a few of the instances that he
has met.
The association keeps no statistics
with regard to the causes of the
homelessness of the children for
whom it cares, but everyone connect
Led with the institution has a fund of
narratives bearing upon the subject.
Owing to the fact that many of these
little ones are new in comforta BILE
homes where they are loved and
cared for, it is, of course, not desir-
able that their history should be re-
corded in such way that in future
years it will be remembered. Nor is
it wise, sometimes, to publish their
pictures for the same reason. A few
photographs, however, were secured
and the story of many instances was
learned.
One of the inmates of the home
to-day is a three-months-old baby
taken from its drunken father after
the death of its mother and after the
father, in drunken brutality, had
threatened to kill his child There
are two other little ones of whom
the record is mother drunken and
absolute, sunken in the very depths
of dissipation"
Two others are brother and a sis
ter, three and five years old, inmates
of the home because their drunken
parents cannot care for them. There
are two pretty little boys, hardly
more than babies, both of them the
victims of drunken parents.
One of the interesting cases in the
homes history is that of a little girl
who, at the age of II years, was found
singing in the lowest dives of Chi
cago to earn money to buy drink for
her brutal father.
The little boy, Sylvester, was found
almost dead from starvation lying
by the side of his dead mother who,
abandoned by her drunken husband,
penniless and an invalid, had COM
mitted suicide in dingy garnet.
Little three-year-old Verna will
never see the daylight and is blind
because of the drunkenness and in
difference of her parents.
Not a few of the cases cared for
by the Home Finding association are
those of abandoned mothers with
their little children and among these
cases drink has been most frequent
factor. In the home at the present
time are three mothers with their
little children, all of whom tell this
story, one of them refusing in alb
ject terror to even tell her name for
fear its publication might reveal her
hiding place to drunken brute, who
once swore to "love, cherish and pro-
tect" her.
One of the stories told at the home
was that of the rescue of a family of
four little children, the youngest two
years old and the oldest only ten, who
were found in midwinter in a dilapi-
dated house in Chicago, where for
pa hours they had been alone with
out fire or food with the body of
their dead mother. Their father had
died a drunkard two years before.
The superintendent of the associa-
ton, DR.. George K. Hoover, asked for
a statement with regard to the per-
.centage of homeless children who are
made homeless by drink, said
81 believe it to be a conservative
statement that the drink habit is the
cause of bringing more than one-half
of the homeless children to homeless
ness and poverty. In addition to this
it must be remembered that the traf-
fic forces thousands of children into
an environment whereby they are in
she constant presence of dissipation
and are of necessity schooled in
crime, their lives blasted and society
sOOurged."