A FATHERLY HEART.
-r EVANA to whom men pray that they may
A have fatherly hearts."
When we read lists of men "wanted" for deserting their families and recognize how large a proportion their children form of those maintained by State aid and charity; when we observe the eagerness of fathers to place their motherless little ones in so-called orphanages, and the readiness of devout women to receive them without money and without price ; when we learn the yearly increasing numbers of school children fed at the public cost, we incline at first sight to draw the double conclusion that unfatherly hearts are more common than they used to be, and that modern means of shaking off an unwelcome burden afford stronger temptations than were ever known before. We forget that means formerly at the disposal of unfatherly men, and widely used by them, are now forbidden by law and public opinion.
One of the worse methods of evading parental responsi- bilities masqueraded under a decent and time-honoured name— apprenticeship. Entirely unregulated domestic and agricul- tural slavery existed for many years after effective checks had been placed on child-labour in factories and mines. Mrs. C., a woman now in her sixty-second year, told me that as a motherless child of eight she was apprenticed by her father to a Devonshire farmer for five years, board, lodging, and clothing to be supplied in return for her labour. Having made this arrangement, he went to the nearest big town, married again, and disappeared. During the first year the farmer's wife, although an invalid dying of cancer, managed to keep her husband from actively ill-treating the child. When death removed this one restraint the full tide of misery and oppression set in, and her sole companion and fellow-worker, a boy apprentice of about the same age, met with even greater cruelty than herself. The poor little lad suffered terribly from chilblains, and Mrs. C. shudders when sbe recalls the brutal manner in which his bleeding feet were forced into farm boots. A stout wattle rod hung in the kitchen, and for every offence, however small or involuntary, they were un- mercifully beaten. The one waking moment of rest was when she attended afternoon service on Sunday, but even that was embittered by consciousness of her coarse and neglected clothes. .
When the girl was about eleven a serious accident brought about a temporary relief. She was piling wood to form a stack and fell from the top and injured her leg, and as she was compelled to go on with all her usual work, cooking, cleaning, milking, &c., the wound festered. One day when the pain was so intense that even her terror of the farmer could not keep her standing, the lady to whom the farm belonged chanced to call at the house. As soon as she saw the child's condition, she sent for her carriage and took her to the nearest hospital, where she remained for four months, the one happy period of her childhood. She had received no teaching at the farm, and a lady visitor taught her to read and crochet, two accomplishments which are still her pride and pleasure. The doctors relieved their minds by giving the farmer their opinion of his conduct, but apparently no redress could be obtained unless the child lost her leg—a misfortune which all the resources of the hospital were used to avert.
As soon as the girl could walk she returned to the farm, and the same dreary round began once more. After endur- ing some act of special cruelty the boy ran away and was never heard of again. Stirred to rebellion by this, she appealed to her father's mother, only to be told: "My girl, I had to put up with it, and you must do the same." When she was nearly thirteen the farmer beat her with such savage recklessness that she ran away and succeeded in reaching her mother's sister. The woman had neither money nor courage openly to contest the farmer's '• rights," but she sheltered bile girl for the night and then sent her away secretly to a distant farm. By the time the man had discovered where she was, her thirteenth birthday had passed, and henceforth she had nothing to endure but the physical hardships of work, which at the present day would be con- sidered "a bit heavy" for a lad of sixteen or seventeen.
Somewhat similar accounts had been given me by persons twenty or more years older than Mrs. C., but they had seemed to believe that they were among the last victims of the system, and I asked her if she considered her ease an exceptional one. Her reply was : "No; I knew many others just like it."
,The practice of compelling wife and children to support themselves partially by begging was another moans of lighten- ing the claims on the unfatherly heart. At the present day even begging from house to house in quiet streets entails too much risk for a woman amateur, while - ordinary children of school age shrink from it as an almost intolerable humiliation, and no temporary or occasional hardship will drive them to such a course. Quite recently I was talking to a group of children playing during recess in a public park. They looked hungry, but by no means rough or neglected, and I enquired into their prospects of dinner. "Us shan't get none to- day," was the matter-of-course answer. "Our mothers telled us to go knocking at ladies' doors, but us don't like to, and us won't," and they returned to their play. Soon after, but a hundred and fifty miles away, I found a small friend shedding bitter tears. Her parents were extremely poor, but I knew that she was always kindly treated at home, and felt no hesitation in asking the cause of her grief. After some difficulty I learnt that a boy rather younger than herself, the child of equally poor parents, bad publicly accused her of "begging from door to door," and the fear that this unfounded charge might be believed by some of her schoolfellows caused her the most acute distress. A London school teacher often shares her dinner with some of her hungriest pupils by the extremely self-sacrificing method of taking two or three of
them to a cheap restaurant instead of going to a better one alone. She tells me that the children show great delicacy of feeling, and that they "never hang round on the chance of being invited."
Another favourite method of the unfatherly heart was to neglect or ill-treat one or more of the children until some relative took pity on the little sufferers and removed them. The plan is still tried, especially by widowers, but there is a douhle difficulty in bringing it to a successful conclusion: the police are likely to interfere, and the relatives, more conscious of the future and of the heavy responsibilities entailed, are more unwilling to take charge of nephews and nieces and grand-children than they were formerly.
Child-labour has been brought to a lower limit than seemed practicable twelve or fifteen years ago, but there are still too many opportunities Mt for the unfatherly heart to display itself. I know a boy of nine who delivers newspapers. He has to be at the office at 6 a.m., but as he has no clock he often arrives too soon. One day last winter he told me, full of self-importance and without the faintest thought of asking for pity, "Miss, I was outside the newspaper place at four o'clock this morning. Copper be knows me, and he says to I, ' What be doin' here, little chap ? ' I says, 'Waiting for my papers, sir." Go home,' he says, 'no papers for two hours.' So I went home and lied me down. I had three breakfus' this morning," he added gleefully. I believe that he commonly has two, but rest being of as much value as food he is mere skin and bone. The father has regular wages of over 30s. a week. Another man, in exactly the same position, and with the same number of dependent children, firmly refuses to allow a boy of thirteen to earn a penny by such means, telling him: "Your time for work will come soon enough, my son."
Even among the lowest and roughest the fatherly heart
often exists as far as mere infants are concerned. In one of the supremely wretched hovels to be found on the outskirts of old towns lives a man whose occupation, when he has any, is driving cattle. One day as I passed he was sitting on the doorstep nursing a boy of about two years old. "Be 'cc turned nurse?" jeered a neighbour. "Ay. Us must show 'cm a bit of love sometimes." His eldest son, aged eight, often finds it expedient to spend the night out of doors.
No one can doubt that the average man has a more fatherly heart than he used to have, that his protective affection for his children lasts over a longer period, and that his self-denial for their sake i3 commonly of a more voluntary and deliberate nature. There is some room for hope that the encouragement
given to men of a lower moral grade to evade their parental duties is more than balanced in its social effects by the checks placed upon the unchaatered freedom of the unfatherly heart. M. LOANB.
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