Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-02-13
M%<a1<ze
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.
The Injury Wrought to English Chill
dren by Evil Laws.

The Injury Wrought to English Chill
i dren by Evil Laws.
! lContributed to the Times Republican
by Lady Cook, nee Tennessee Clafiin
i 1t is grave reflection upon our sense
of justice and of moral responsibility,
that 1t should be necessary for any
public writer. at this stage of Christian
civilization, to advocate the claims of
4 children upon their rights. One class
of them is is by law fairly provided for,
even here some gross defects exist. but
! there is another and extensive one to
! which the English laws are more than
Icruel-they are positively barbarous.
4 The illegitimates are treated as tho
they themselves were answerable for
their own being 1t is not enough that
the finger of social scorn is pointed at
them; they are also, because of their
birth, deprived of many of the ordinary
privileges of citizens. and in these re-
spects are treated worse than criminals.
| But when. In addition, they meet with
parental heartlessness or neglect. their
| position becomes most deplorable. The
result of these public and private
wrongs is that natural children have
the smallest chance of living to matur-
lily. while those who survive are often
needlessly and willfully driven into the
ranks of vice and criminality. and thus
bring upon the community moral re-
tribution.
Let no one be deceived. There is
moral as well as a physical world and
every injury done to another must I'LL
tinately recoil upon the community.
The unjust degradation is produced
And the longer 1t is protracted the
greater will be the evil. But 1t should
not be forgotten that bad law is in
finitely more pernicions than private
misconduct. A vicious individual must
do evil, 1t is true, but only to limited
degree. There are hardly any bounds
however, to the ruin which vicious
law may effect. And 1t needs no deus ex
machina, no hand in the clouds. to pun
ish the evil law or evil doer. The
avenging Nemesis accompanies both,
for evil acts by their own nature bear
within themselves seeds of retribution.
BY their fruits shall we know them"
We have in former articles pointed
out the special law-made disabilities
under which the illegitimate lie in this
country, and so need not re-enumerate
them now. That these laws survive at
all is reproach to the head and heart
of great people. That we alone in
Europe posses no law of legitimatlon is
another. And it is due to this legal
dullness of head and hardness of heart, !
perhaps. more than to anything else,
that so many fathers are destitute of
,rr al I'll.
beget children, but do little or nothing
to provide for them. In many cases |
they would not even know them were |
they to meet them. They make love
with light heart and leave the con-
sequences to an outraged God and to |
the deluded mother. And in this they
prove themselves more brutal than the
brutes, who are never without as full a
share of parental affection or protec-
ton as their offspring require.
Let us take a typical case, one OF
many we. have known. A young man,
struck by the appearance of a good
looking girl, makes her acquaintance
under an assumed name, pursues her
with his attentions, and persuades her
of his love, which Is as false as all the
rest. Deceived by his pretended re-
gard, she. guileless and warm hearted,
responds to 1t, and eventually gives him
the highest pledge of her affection. He
enjoys her society 1t may be until their
intercourse is followed by the usual
result. and then he abandons her to
shame, and their unborn child to the
parish and to a life of unmerited hard
ship. What requital can be too Sc
al cC31v 10
Yet it is of daily occurrence. is scarcely
and seldom punished. Indeed.
here exists no satutable means of pun
shing 1t.
We noticed short time ago case
lot so utterly heartless as this. yet
,ruel enough, altho the world would not
Judge the father too harshly. A charm
ng little girl. fair, innocent, intelligent
AN unconscious patricienne-seemed
tut of place in a frowzy boarding
rouse. Her mother was the landlady
md when younger, had been on the
tage. Her father was man of rank
md wealth, accustomed to fashionable
ociety, and the daily luxuries of high
,red life, amongst which an actress is
reckoned. Like an honour
lble men he admitted his paternity, and
made small yearly allowance to the
mother for his child. But there he
topped. He never sees her. He does
lot know her. He is utterly Indifferent
IS to what becomes of her. His solc-
tor pays the annuity, and this is his
Measure of his parental responsibility!
,et he is descended from men who were
nights In the days of chivalry, and
whose mothers, when their sons re-
eived the eccolade, embraced EACH
aging. BE thou brave and upright.
that you spring from race
Which should never be false" One of
he four rules which every knight had
o observe all his life, in order to pre-
erve his honor untarnished was;