Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/284

 WORLD OP WOMEN 262 SOCIETIES WHICH HELP WO: CHILDREN AMD No. 2. THE NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN By ROBERT J. PARR, Director of N.S.P.C.C. The Eternal Love for Children — ** How Can They Be So Cruel ? ** — How the Inspectors "Work— The Warning Note— A Harsh Stepfather— The Blind Mother's New Home tiny, soft fists are thrust into her facel and T"nE milhtrun theory of the greatest teacher of all time in its application to " whoso shall oflfend against one of these little ones " was associated with the definite assertion Two children &s found by the N.S.P.C.C. that it was not the will of the Great Father "that one of these little ones should perish." The Eternal Love for Children Through all the ages have these Words hved. I>ovc for offspring has throbbed in the I>arcntal lx)Sfjm of man and beast. Those who have watched the cat nurturing its kittens, or the bird feeding its downy young, hnd It difficult indeed to understand the hrutahty of unnatural parents which the >.ationaI Society for the Prevention of tTuelty to Children has since 1884 been vigorously fighting. Sad, indeed, it is that a society should ^Q required to step in between tliild and parent. Vet it is matter for con- gratulation that a society exists which rpcues the 150,000 children a year from the leash of the tormentor and the neglect of the brute who would starve his children. "How Can They be so Cruel?" The mother who surveys her pretty little thHi ^r^^^J°^"s^^^ at arms' length, who is thnllcd with the force of her affection as two then who, kissing the velvety and tender cheek, hugs her offspring to her bosom, her eyes Welling over Avith tears from the fulness of her emotions, suffers untold revulsion when she hears of cruelty to children. More than that, her own humanity wall prevent her from believing the ghastly stories contained among the records of the N.S.P.C.C. " How can people be so cruel ? " asks the tender parent, and she hugs her own loved child the closer to her, lest some fiend of the imagination should snatch at it. There are, unfortunately, parents of 150,000 children discovered every year in England guilty of the grossest cruelty to their offspring. Not only, indeed, does the The same children a month later brutality exist, but it is in some cases so persistent that punishment of the severest kind seems incapable of kiUing the brute
 * u I, ^"^^^ "^a^- Here, for example, are

the bald facts of such a case : xxr?^^'° children of a man and wife died. When a third child was four months old,