The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-06-21
sY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.
The Humane Society's attention
might be called to several things.
Among them the little carts in
| which children are pushed or hauled
about.
Any day you can see poor little
youngsters with scared faces holding
on to the handles while they are
roughly jostled on and off the curbing
and all but spilled into the street.
Even were the carts carefully han
died the positions very little children
occupy in these barbarously construct
ed hand-vehicles are often hurtful.
And cries of pain are frequently
heard from the little creatures as they
are jostled from a high sidewalk to
a street crossing.
These things are inhuman unless
very carefully used and adjusted and
even at that are of no advantage in
developing the physique of a child.
The truth is that children need look
| ing after as we'll as the horses and
dogs.
Cattle and sheep and finely bred ami
mails of all classes are, oftener than
not, given more attention than chill
| Gren.
| One OF the best known short stories
of the day is that of Mary E. wilkins,
whose subject was the Revolt of
Mother, "-the wellto-do farmers wife
who had been promised for thirty
years or so a decent house to live in
nd hn MI Of a
splendid new barn with every modern
convenience" and intellectually eff
fective, executed the recall and moved
into the barn from whence she did not
bulge until the foundation for a new
residence was under way.
Ride through the country any day
hereabouts and you will see this sort
of thing.
Big, well-kept barns adjacent to
shabby old houses.
Conveniences for the lower animals
but few for the humans.
The president of the humane soci-
ETY. said the other evening that dogs
were given more protection under the
law at this time than some classes of
men.
And humane officer, if one were
appointed for this city, should look
after the abuse of children.
People are unconsciously cruel.
And consciously.
A woman told the writer that on
every Saturday night any time verging
on midnight a child was heard pass
ing her house, presumably with it's
parents and, from it's voice, but few
years old.
The child was invariably crying
with fatigue.
| And begging to be taken up
| The parents were just as Invariably
shouting at it to shut up" stop
that or I'll lick you!" What's the mat
ter with you any way-you little brat
you, and frequently she had heard
the resounding slap across the street
and the cry of terror and pain from
the child.
! If there had been humane officer,
said this woman, she would have had
the case investigated.
Evidently the parents went down
town on Saturday night, dragging
their poor little child from pillar to
post, and then, when it was sick with
fatigue. scolded and slapped and be-
rated it.
Perhaps these parents were unaware
Of the fact that they were being cruel
But ordinary human instinct would
seem to contradict this attitude.
Very few persons seem to realize,
either, that children who are little
more than babies, can't walk as fast
as their elders. The commonest every
day sight is to see some man or wom-
an striding along holding a child's
hand, the latter on half-run, half-trot,
perhaps on his tip-toes.
| Nothing is more injurious than this
Children have been injured for life
through just such careless handling
| Others through indiscriminate slap
ping, jerking, beating and actual bru-
tally.
And these children are not necessar-
lily found in the less prosperous dis
tricts.
The truth is that lot of people take
out their own ill-tempers on their chill
dren.
! It's because they are "mad''-not be-
cause the children are bad.
/ If children are beaten and cuffed and
kicked and berated they will do the
same to other smaller children when
they grow little larger
| If you yell and shrek and scream
at a child, it will do the same to you
and to everybody else
| The force of example is overwhel-
ming and terrific.