The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-11-04
SADDEST ROOM IN
. ALL NEW YORK
Its One Cradle Receives Owe,
Two Thousand Abandoned
Babies Every Year
NO QUESTIONS ASKED MOTHERS
But When She Puts the Infant Down
in the Receiving Room and Goes
Out the Open Door the Child ceasea
to BE Hers.

w VIC hCCSlNllS nOOW aud SOSS
Out the Open Door the Child ceacea
to BE Hers.
In a niche above a doorway in
great building in uptown, New York
City. is marble statute of a woman
holding a little child close to her
breast. Beneath her, through a
door that has not been locked In for
ty years, women pass in to the
Founding Hospital with their babiet
in the arms and come out with their
arms empty.
single white cradle in the entry
of a bare reception room receives and
rescues nearly two thousand babies
year, says Pearsons Magazine The
room where the mothers reliuQusl
their babies is called the saddest
place in New York.
There is nothing in the receiving
room but the little cradle and no one
in sight, though a matron is always
in waiting near by. She never forces
mother to confession but if possible
persuades her co tell why she wishes
to desert her child and perhaps in
fiuences her not to give it up but to
begin life over again. mother must
understand that the choice is with
her. The matron may give the moth
er ten or fifteen minutes in which to
decide, but the choice is final.
If the mother wishes it and it can
be arranged she is often taken into
the hospital with her baby and al
lowed to nurse It by having charge OF
another of the tiny children and help
ing with one older child. There are
now 800 mother nurses working in the
New York home, and there have been
500 or 600 at other times.
The mother who comes into the hos
pital to work can often prove her fit.
ness to have her baby back again, but
once she puts it down in the rescue
cradle and goes out the ever open
door the baby belongs to her no long
er; she may never see or hear of it
again.
There are 600 indoor babies being
cared for inside the New York City
Founding Home. 1t is necessary to
en- thousand four hundred and twenty
four little foundlings have been look.
ed after in the last two years, and
there are relatively as many in Bos-
ton, in Chicago, in Philadelphia-in
every large city in America.
In Europe there is an even greater
number of founding babies. The Eu-
ropean States take charge of the de-
serted waits, but the mother is only
permitted to bring her child to an en-.
trance way, ring a bell and give it
into the arms of the attendant who
opens the door, and go away without
a word.
Two agents, whose work ii is to
find mothers and fathers for the wait
ing babies are a part of the regular
staff of the Founding Home. They
work through other agents all over
the country, through churches and
missions and childrens aid societies;
the appeal is universal Do you want
baby? Descriptions and require
ments may be written to the staff at
the hospital, and you may have just
the baby you are looking for.
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and a sweet disposition is almost al
ways one Of the specifications.
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