The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1916-11-15 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

THE SECRET PLLGAIR.  [ra, T. Raffles Sulley'akddress  On Saturday evolving at tbe Sesoboroft Settlement, Birkenhead dare was a dome. rous audience to bear an addries by lire. T. Raffles Bain on a subjeot of soinessbat delicate oharaoter and yet one of no little importance in respect to the wen-being or  the notion. Sooh subjeot wee "The repcot, of the &ma Cononission on Wannest Diseases." lins. 34241Aes oflkioted me "-chat:l-num."  AGe. Bulky traced the stops Slat ked up to the npnomtment, and the .lengthy sittings., of thispolloyal Commisnon—a Comm/13510n 0001 of soond workers and authorities on social subjects, both men and women. The details of the Commission, the thousands of questions to and answers from witnesses who knew what they were talking about were put:dished in a Blue Book which they owht to be able to nbtain at their Free Lihmartai, as alao the Blue Report. Sad and terrible reading was furnished by these reports. For one thing they told them that a great amount of blindness was due to immorality, and it also told them how the lives of thousands of young people were made miserable simply for the reason that in their younger days— in days when they were well qualified to understand the meaning of the troths— they were not told the consequences of immorality. There should, said Mrs. Bulley, be more plain speaking to both young men , and women by the medical profession. The disease which they had to stamp out root land branch was not only productive of blindness but also, as shown by the Royal t commission, of deafness and other afflic hone. One suggestion of the Commission was that marriages should be capable of annulntent within the first year of the nuptial knot being tied under certain ditions to which Mrs. Burley referred. The Commission also advocated free treatment for the diseased. The question of their Lord, "Did this man sin, or his parents, that he was born blind?" agelied just as much to-day as it did when the question wee asked. poor little infants were being murdered to-day just as surd's, if more slowly, as if their throats had been cut with a knife. Cleanliness, purity and a heritage which made them fit to live their lives were what the chillren wanted besides bread. They wanted a cleansing of the afflicted. but it would be a very sad day for England if people thought that haring been cleansed of their ailments they could go on acting as they had done before. What could be done to remedy the present miserable and rotten state of things in their social life? Well, in the first place they must educate the children. There was never a weaker answer on the part of parents who had not warned their children of the temptations that would confront them than the one so too frequently used. " T didn't like to." It was a waak and cowardly thing to say. Fancy parents 1,r,t1inr children out to meet the strongest temptations—and they must certainly meet thcm--yeithout any warning! There ought to be more confidence betw.en parents and children—fathers ought to tell their bovs freely, though in confidence, of the evils that would beset them. They might readily put it to the boy that a strong virile manliness, of muscle and brain, of power and thought, did not develop until full manhood was reached. Let parents see to it that tihlir, _e ohlechyn did not read "penny n their libraries were full of such good litere.tdre as that, say for ex,ample, of Dickens and Thackeray._Did not her hearers think, asked Mrs. Batley, that they might try to cleaner, their workshops and get rid of foul jokes about women? Let all coarseness be anathema to them, and, be their time here on earth long or short, let them be able to go into God's presence with clean hands and a pure heart. Let them give to their children the most splendid ideas of the beauty of art, literature, and high-mindedness and aid in the wiping out in the new generation of the terrible evils that were existent in this present generation. _  A number of were subsequently put to,, and answered by, Mrs. Bailey.