Bender, John and Bridget, had been continually apply ing for aid in rent, food, and clothing for fourteen years. On one occasion, the wife being in the almshouse, John had asked for shelter of some kind for himself. Their record is bad — laziness on the one side, untruthfulness on the other, and intemperance on both. A nurse made a report that he was suffering from varicose veins and needed an elastic stocking ; that he was physically unable to do any work that would require standing ; and, more over, that he was subject to epileptic fits, and was, prac tically, a physical and nervous wreck. As if to match his condition, Bridget, the wife, had a repulsive eruption on her face, for which, at the time of this report, she was being treated at a public dispensary. Their account of their own past life was confused and unsatisfactory, neither being able to make any statement as to the time and place of their marriage or in regard to their children.
This situation is presented, not as an example of a family that should have relief at home, but as one con cerning whom this question will constantly arise, to be decided affirmatively or negatively. It is safe to decide it negatively in such cases, and to take the position that the children should be removed and the parents separated for hospital or permanent institutional care.
Beaumais, Marie. A very different case is that of Marie Beaumais, who is related, by many removes, to a woman of wealth and social position. This distant kins woman, not so much because of the relationship as be cause of a personal friendship for this woman's mother, has expressed a willingness to make her a monthly allow ance, provided she will cut loose, with her children, from her utterly disreputable and worthless husband. He has done practically nothing, in their ten years of married life, except to squander his wife's small dowry and to live upon her earnings. Even the modest homestead which had belonged to his wife has gone to meet princi pal and interest of a mortgage indebtedness. She is not physically strong, and, as her means are exhausted, the absence of the allowance would mean the commitment of her children as public charges, and the necessity of supporting herself at service or in some similar manner. With reluctance, therefore, and with many assurances to the visitor that she had, personally, no ill-feeling toward her husband, she consented to a legal separation on the ground of non-support, and became established in a few rooms with her children, expecting to earn whatever is needed for their support over and above the allowance which was thus secured.
The wisdom of this conditional offer has been ques tioned, and such a harsh word as " hypocrisy " has been used to describe Marie's acceptance of the offer, in view of her husband's not infrequent visits to her and her chil dren in their new quarters, and her own expressions of continued affection for him ; but her attitude is really sufficiently straightforward to satisfy the most exacting.
She had no desire to be separated from her husband, she had no fault to find with him, — at least, to outsiders, the legal action was but an empty form to which she agreed as the only condition upon which an income which she needed could be secured.
Jay, John and Rachel, applied to a charitable society twenty years ago, but no necessity for relief was discov ered. The same request was made the following year. Mrs. Jay then said that her husband had deserted her, which, however, was found to be untrue. The relief society paid rent and provided groceries. The record then has a blank of eleven years, which will readily be filled in by an experienced visitor, by unrecorded appli cations to individuals, churches, and societies, rewarded by occasional success. Application was then made to a church whose visitor offered employment to a grown girl in the family, which was refused. It is pathetically and briefly recorded that all aid given had not helped the family.
The housekeeper at the house in which the family had formerly lived said that they had been dispossessed for drunkenness of both the man and woman. In this year the relief society gave relief twice, once a grant being made at the request of the church. The head of the family was now ill and needed extra nourishment. He had, however, patented a window-sash, which a clergyman arranged to place upon the market.
The following year the family was again reported for aid, this time by a private citizen to whom they had ap plied. The husband was ill, a son of working age had irregular employment, and the daughter to whom employ ment had previously been offered was out of work. A loan association reported that a loan of $50 had been made twice, the furniture being pledged as security. Both loans had been repaid, but the second under compulsion.
Two years later a third church asked. an investigation, the man having died the year before. The housekeeper at a new address said that the family did not pay debts and spent their money for drink ; that the boy stole lead pipes from the house and cut up the wardrobes in the apart ments for fuel ; that the family had lived extravagantly for a time on the man's insurance. Two years later the unpromising boy had regular employment at $10 a week, and therefore the family was left to its own resources.