Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-03-05

eses that had been sent c. o. D. to the
home CT the woman with the wrong baby,
the right one was eventually restored to
her. and the weeping and wailing woman
at the store with the wrong was COM
tcrted with the sight of her own infant.
When the tangle has been Strengthened
out the proprietor OF the store, who had
been hopping his brow for hours over the
thought OF damage suits for lost or mixed
or strayed or stolen babies aggregating
hundreds OF thousands of dollars. solemnly
swore OF as to his baby-checking bureau.
Odd Effects of Rainy-Day Skirts.
Those threatened rainy-d skirts, five
inches from the ground are making their
appearance in New York But there must
have been some mistake In the advance no.
tees of them with respect to the number of
inches from the ground Many of them In
truth. appear to be a good foot from the
ground. and their effect is quite remark
2ble, especially on these blowy March days.
Viewed from the not improbabiy wrong
masculine point of view. there isn't any
thing much uglier in the world than a So
caiIed rainy-day skirt even of the normal
length for garments of that kind. but the
new kind of extraordinarily short rainy day
skirt is little short of impossible, rendering.
as 1t does, a short, stodgy woman into a
sort of carfcature study of lumpiness, and
a tall angular woman into a sort of modi-
tied Sis Hopkins.
Worn in connection with this fashion
which New York women have adopted of
wearing their hair coled low upon their
necks or actually braided and ribbon-tied
in schoolgirl style, the woman thus fixed
out for the street looks to be making dis
mai effort to turn the wheel of time back
ward with ridiculous righteousness
rms writer espied on Park Row the other
afternoon woman at least five feet eleven
inches in height, and weighing all of one
hundred pounds, with her hair in school
girl braids on her neck. a new style rainy
day skirt That was shy at least foot OF
reaching to terra frD1a, and with low-cut
colnmon-sense shoes covered over by
large, hoppy pair of rubbers.
Something like 5000 persons male and
female, craned their necks to get another
view OF her within the space Of her parade
from the corner of John and Nassau street
to the bridge.
Remarkable Display of Principle.
A sweet-faced little girl of twelve years
appeared at New York police station the
other evening and told the desk sergeant
that she wanted to be locked up and then
committed to some institution. The SER
geant asked the child II she had done any
thing wrong, and she replied that she had
not.
1t took some time for the officer to get
the child to tell why she wanted to be
committed to an institution for girls, but
she finally told him, in voice choked with
tears.
An hour before her mother, a sot had
sent her out with money to buy whisky.
The child had been told by her school
teacher not to buy whisky for her mother.
But her mother was very drunk, and she
feared to disobey her. She didn't want to
buy any more whisky for her, but she
dared not go home and tell her mother that
Her father, too, the child said was a
drunkard. and she had often been sent out
| to buy liquor for him. But she tired
| of it, tired of being beaten and abused by
her drunken mother, and she wanted to go
| to some institution.
The child s story was Immediately investi-
| gated and found to be true in every detail.
The mother was found in a bestiaI state of
intoxication, and 1t took several officers to
arrest her The child was taken in hand
| by the Gerry Society. at the institution OF
which she will be reared.
Many Offers of Adoption.
| Hundreds of offers, most of them from
well-to-do people. have been received by
| the Gerry Society people to adopt the child
| with such a pathetic cinging to principle,
but the drunken mother absolutely de-
clines to sign away her right to the child.
even for the little girls good and happi-
| ness, nothing can be done in that direc-
ton. and the child will have to be brought
up by the Gerry folks She will not. at
all events, have to go back to the sur
roundings from which she escaped by ask
ing to be locked up
The case invites attention to the fact
that thousands of children in New York are
put into pitiful position by the instruc-
tons given to them by their school teach
erS, public and parochial, not TO allow
themselves to be sent after liquor by their
parents.
The unfortunate young ones of drunken
parents are put between the devil and the
deep sea under such instructions. The in
structionS are undeniably all right, and
there is a law here against selling liquor
of any sort to children, whether it be for
their parents or not. But the difficulty Is
| that the law isn't enforced and he chill
dren have to obey their parents or take the
chance of being beaten almost to death, as,
! indeed. many of them have been since tho
| teachers began to instruct them to refuse
| to go after liquor for their parents.
Must Mind Their Parents.
The conscientious children teH-their pa
| rents. when sent out after liquor, that they
| have been instructed by their teachers not
| to do it, and then they are clouted and
| Knocked around. all for nothing, for they
eventually have to mind their parents any
| way.
1t is a clash of authority that is causing
| thousands of the children of the tenements
| to go about with pitiful bruises and welts
| covering their little bodies most of the
| time.
The present mayor of New York saws
| that he is going to stop all of this by Or
dering the teachers to cease giving the
children any such Instructions, and by CIV
ing the saloon keepers who sell liquor to
children the limit of the law. But other
mayors have said the same thing, time and
again, and yet one of the most characteris-
tic sights of New York. even in fairly de-
cent quarters of the city, is the spectacle
of tiny tots Of children running into sa-
looms with enormous "growIers'' or emerg-
ing from them with big bottles of vile
whisky In their arms. If the Terry Society
or the municipality of New York were to
undertake to care for all of the children
OF this town whose parents are hopeless
and irreciaimable drunkards, the city treas
ury would be out of business inside of a
year. e. I. C