The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-01
A NAMELEgs LITTLH BABY.
Left Year Ago Has Grown Into a
 Beautiful Child-Apparently of Good

gt t +
 Left a Year Ago Has Grown Into a
 Beautiful Child-Apparently of Good
 Breeding.
 One of the usolYed mysteries of the minor wards department of the State Board of Charities is the story of the career of Leon Martin a case which from the moment is first came to the attention of the State officials, at tracted unusual attention. Far and wide the department has advertised for information as to the childs name, birthplace and parentage, offering to hold all lscommunications confidential, and even offering reward for infor- nation, but never a word has come during the 13 months that have inter- vened since he was left in his go-cart in front of a drygoods store in Lynn.
 It was at first thought that his mother or nurse was inside the store, SO engrossed iii making purchases as to have forgotten the existence of the child, but a search of the store failed
 to disclose the presence of any one lay, ing claim to the infant.
 The police, therefore, took charge of lit, and the mother was still sought.
 Then the State Charity Department was consulted, and the reluctant con- Iclusion reached that the child had been deliberately abandoned
 But by whom? It could hardly have been the mother, because the woman who had charge of the child was not lacking in money, and only
 bangs of poverty could drive mother to separate from her babe. The baby IWas well dressed, too, and the go-cart l in which 1t sat was a new one, having
 been purchased in Lynn that very afternoon by the woman who took the child to the dry good store.
 Assuming that perhaps the mother | still lived and had been robbed of her child, the State authorities dd what Ithey seldom do in such eases, ,adver- tsed extensively the finding of such a baby, hoping by this means to restore the child to a perhaps distracted mother But advertising was fruit less.
 Never an inquiry came. The woman who entered the dry goods store drop l ped out of sight as effectually as if the earth had opened to swallow her. And 1 the nanleless little baby was given the name Leon Martin, which it still bears and which it will bear until perna- nent home is found for it with some family whose name it will then legally adopt. Examination by the authorities re- vealed the fact that, although the child Twas we'll dressed, it had not been well feared for. A hurnor marked it's little body and told too plainly of the lack ! of a mothers care and of proper bath ling. But within week after the child lcame into the care of the State and lhad been turned over to a motherly
 woman to rear as a State ward all
 this had disappeared and the little un-
 known has developed into a really beautiful child.
 | No photograph can really do justice ! to the harmony of contrasts in the lcurly, golden hair, the large blue eyes land the peach-colored cheeks. The face is fine and sensitive; in fact, the
 guess has been repeatedly hazarded that the baby is the scion of some family of breeding, who, for some un- fashionable reason, has been deserted on the streets to drift away among the lunknown and to grow up without
 knowledge of his percentage.
 | A proposition to adopt the baby has
 been received, and the State officials lwould like to acertain it's parents if it sbe possible to do so before the legal Isteps which shall separate him from
 those having anyaclaim on him shall Ihave been taken. Boston Herald.