The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1917-07-30
Great ADVANTAGE

| Great Advantage
| Judge Neil had the great advan
tage of having no other business ir
England than to save the babies. AL
| so he seemed to know by instinct
what the Germans had demonstrated
at enormous expense in Berlin by the
institution of the Empress Augusta s
House, where children are given all
the costly advantages that can be
conferred on them by an institution
which is exhibited to all Europe as
model Of its kind and. a wonder, OF
the very latest scientific hygiene and
baby culture, with the remarkable
result that child brought up on
the mud floor of a Connaught cabin
can have had it's life insured at a
much lower rate than Kaiserin
Augusta child if anybody should hap
pen to think of insuring it at all
Judge Neil, a man of powerful orig
inality, conceived the startling no.
tion that as a child must, after all,
be looked after by somebody until a
trustworthy combined incubator,
stomach pump, and vacuum cleaner
is invented, and that that somebody
may as we'll be the child's mother!
He proposed, in short, to tear the
children from the aching arms of the
official guardians of the poor and the
beadle (poorhouse superintendent
and fling. them naked on the mater.
nal breast Unnatural as it seemed,
the notion had its good points. 1t
was much cheaper; and the children
did not die of it as they did in the
constructing caresses of the official
custodians. Within reason, even a
bad mother is better than good
beadle. ,>H>
r. .as Give Her Money r.. .az.
Judge Neil had anofner fresh idea.
He did not dispute tho rule that "the
poor in a|loom is bad When the
poor mother was trotted. out and ex-
hibited as necessarily a bad mother,
he pointed out with the simplicity of
Columbus that the way to get over
her poverty and consequently her
badness, was to give her some
money. ~
When the experiment was only
half success in America he
said "Give her twice as much
money" which being done, the
experiment became wholly sue
cessfuI.
There was no mystery about the
matter; you take woman whose child
is a crushing burden to her. and you
make it a source of revenue. You
get rid of the very Objectionable sort
of child stealer called an uplifter,
and make. the child the uplifter and
the mother the uplifted, process
which, as the mother carries the child
ends in the child being uplifted too.
Mothers pension is popular title;
but it is not an exact one. AS the
pension is not given to a mother who
has lost her children, it is clearly a
child's pension for which the mother
is made trustee; and it. is well to in
sist on this so as to be prepared for
the case of the trustee proving un-
trustworthy.
Old Age Pension
When Judge Neil came to England
he found, among the other eccentric
arrangements of this most unreason-
able country, that we had actually in
stiuted Old Age Pensions without
ever thinning of the far more pressing
need for Young Age Pensions; and
he set himself to persuade us that
we had begun at the wrong end.
-. A still crazier discovery was
that woman with iIlegitimate
children could by familiar
everyday process Of English law
obtain a pension Of five shiIIings
week for each child provided
she selected the father from the
welI.to-do class which can afford
such Iuxuries.
No doubt this arrangement tends
to abolish class hatred by encourag-
ing affectionate relations between the
proletariat and the bourgeoise; but
Judge Neil could not be made to un-
nderstand why a respectable married
woman, struggling to bring up six
children, should have a starvation
pittance doled out to her with every
circumstance of bitter humlllatlng
and continuous insult, whilst less
scrupulous one should have twice as
much without any worse ordeal than
facing just once smile from a mag
istrate and his staff.
The Judge makes helps instead OF
hindrances of these anomalies. They
enable him to show us what fools we
are in good humored manner. He
is gaining ground here as he did in
his own country. The right idea
only needed the right man to drive
I,,dcro IIo,ar1r Nnil SepnS tQ