Dr. Barnardo, the father of "nobody's children" : a sketch / [W.T. Stead].

  • William Thomas Stead
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Barnardo, the father of "nobody's children" : a sketch / [W.T. Stead]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to be pronounced legally wrong. He practised what he described as philanthropic abduction in one case only. A little girl, whose step-father was said to have twice assaulted her, was declared by the Court to have no option but to return again to the brute who was her legal guardian. To save that child from the worst out¬ rage, which on the third attempt would probably have been completed. Dr. Barnardo, at the child’s urgent entreaty, sent her abroad, thereby placing her outside when those persons were admittedly the mere cat’s-paws of the priests. Dr. Barnardo is an Irish Protestant who sees the Pope through lurid spectacles, and in one or two cases he made what seemed to me a quite unnecessary fuss about returning the child to Catholic custody. Fortunately saner counsels now prevail on both sides. The policy adopted by Cardinal Vaughan on this question deserves honourable mention, as the one solitary instance in which he has shown himself wiser *■ ii];: . j|F fagMm ^1 SUNDAY MORNING IN THE CHILDREN’S CHURCH AT THE GIRLS’ VILLAGE HOME, ILFORD, ESSEX. the jurisdiction. This was, of course, extra legal con¬ duct, for which he was held to have committed contempt of court, but many people still think he did nothing more than his obvious duty. Such action as he attempted in this case and in the celebrated Gossage case, can. Dr. Barnardo says, never again be necessary, the law, which has since been altered, being now efficient to safe-guard the welfare of any child or young person in jeopardy through evil-disposed relatives. The worst that can be charged against Dr. Barnardo has been an excessive reluctance to give up children whom he has rescued from the slums to the hands of those from whom they had been delivered, especially than his predecessor. There is now peace between the Cardinal and Dr. Barnardo, although, of course, neither has abated one jot or one tittle of his deep conviction as to the essentially heretical religious beliefs of the other. This is not a biography. But in passing it would be unpardonable to ignore the extent to which the good man has triumphed over the assaults of his enemies. When he began his missioning in East London nothing' was more common than for him to be mobbed by a horde of loafers and corner boys. “ There was much more intolerance in those days,” Dr. Barnardo said to me —“much. Nowadays, if the worst rough will not listen