Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1910-03-26 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

EXPERT IN LAW.  tion of things. That death certificates are often given carelessly there can be no doubt whatever, and three cases were mentioned at a meeting by a medical man, the facts of wJaieh are indisputable. One case was mentioned, and such cases are, we fear, only too common, where a woman had obtained three death certifigites to enable her to secure insurance money off the death of her child. Another case was mentioned where a person had framed and hung in his own drawing-room a certificate of his own death. The third case referred to a woman who carried her death certificate in her pocket. All this points to the fact that much as a Royal Commission has been needed to investigate the state of our divorce laws, much more is one needed to recommend amendments of the burial laws.  One other case was brought up at a meeting on the same subject which is, perhaps, the most striking of any. This was in a case of suicide. Three doctors examined a man who had hanged himself. Two came to the conclusion he was dead, and would readily have given certificates to that effect. The third doctor tried artificial respiration, and after a while restored the man to consciousness, and he completely recovered! Agitation has been going on for some years in these matters, and it is now to be hoped the attention of the Legislature will be drawn to it with good results.  The Children's Act, 1908, has now been in force a sufficiently long time to enable us to judge of some of its merits and demerits. The Act was drawn up especially for the labouring, indigent, and uneducated classes, many of whom, it is regrettable to have to say, resort to neglect of their offspring in a way which is as appalling as it is incredible.  Parts I. and 11. of the Act deal with Infant Life Protection and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and Young Persons, the most important sections of the former being those dealing with the supervision of persons receiving children for reward. These are clauses which would have delighted the heart of Charles Dickens. But there are some provisions of the Act the carrying out of which meets with difficulties, as where an Inspector finds there is something going on behind the scenes which he is unable to get at when confronted with a cunning foster mother. Although the provisions of the Act dealing with insanitary premises, drunkenness, immorality, and so forth, and the penalties imposed by it, may be well known by those aimed at, yet there are means of concealing things it is not desired others (especially Inspectors) should see.  An important change made by the Act was the extension from five to 'seven years of age in connection with children nursed for reward, and the application of the Act to oven a single infant. What chance has a child of five who is suffering ill-treatment and neglect of complaining?  There will be no harm in referring again to the wise provision dealing with the insuring of infants' lives, for no clause could have been more beneficial than that prohibiting the keeping of a child or children and the insuring its life by those who have no interest in it. No one kceping a child for reward has now an insurable interest in it, and any attAmpt to insure the child's life renders him guilty of ap offence under the Act.