Show r 3 TO ff 7 PER V REQUIRE efm caf baby farming baa chicago extended as a profitable busl ft ness in chicago the profits accrue from starved bodies neglected and treat ed children homeless and dependent upon the farmer with whom they are boarded at from three to seven dollars per week most of the farms are situated in districts where tumbling buildings are decaying in falth and neglect the babies are helpless and have no right of selections they must suffer in sl lenco and often die from disease and neglect the farat baby farm visited by a reporter for the sunday tribune was kept by a middle aged woman trying to care for eight or ten small ahll dran in cramped quarters and under poor conditions undoubtedly this woman meant well enough but she needed the money she simply could not devote enough time to each child to give its little life a fighting chance A baby farm does not mean a place where the grass Is green and there are plenty of trees and cows but a dingy flat in the yards or a four room cottage on a corner where five car lines meet there Is nothing comfortable about a baby farm but the income of the woman who often appears corpulent and luxurious in contrast to the emaciated infants in her charge here the babies are all teeth long hair and legs they are so thin they look like cadaverous birds opening their mouths bously for nourishment which they do not get inspection fear of keepers when a tribune reporter went un bidden to one baby farm in the suburbs the woman in charge turned pale and her lips trembled she al most dr raped a bottle of soothing she was carrying and gained control of herself only when told that the reporter had a baby to board 0 she said taking a long breath 1 I thought aou were from the board of health they are Inspect ln the babler fierce dont allow more than four children to a house they are gettan so strict walls from several distressed voices floated down from the attic as she spoke and there were five children in the room it was one of those problems of two times two are five which essayists used to write abent n school on composition beok mental calculation was interrupted by the door bell A pale mother al most lost under a sailor hat and in a cheap long coat stood on the little stoop before tha door she wished to board her fen days old babyn ais she had to go to in a restaurant the natt day A whispered conference followed in tha doorway the frail mother crossed the comans womans palm with three pieces of allver before she hurried off to fetch her baby infants the choice boarders how old la your baby was asked A year old I 1 stammered not knowing whether to make any alc child real young or not then I 1 realized my mistake 1 I like infants best infants sleep most of the time and lon t bother me she said shaking the bottle of cordial significantly what do you charge I 1 asked she picked up a weak a dirty gray blanket on the bare floor and said I 1 get five dollars a week for boardly ln this one shea gettan her teeth and looks pua y but shea strong pay you alve dollars a week but I 1 must look over the place to bee just where the baby will bleed bleep and what attention you can give it the woman slanted her shrewd eyes and demurred haggling for a bargain I 1 haan t got much room I 1 have four children of my own and there are my two boarders my husband and myself my father lives with me too I 1 cant take no more babies in the attic but put your baby in the parlor for seven dollars a week I 1 was afraid of the cats in the front room cats the lesser danger ln Is going to hurt your baby down here she insisted a little coldly lifting her voice above the walls of the infanta in the attic I 1 ve boarded children coln on six years and has ever happened to one of them I 1 insisted upon placing my child in the attic then she reluctantly led the way through the kitchen where I 1 discovered more children A two year old boarder in a dirty dress rocked herself wearily near tha range two other waife waifs stood on chairs hacking at a loaf of bread lying on the mussy oilcloth on the kitchen table A bare back yard decorated with scraps of old iron and many tin cans could be seen its whole length to the high unpainted board fence through the own doorway this Is where the children play I 1 stumbled up the attic stairs behind the woman who became wedged in the narrow passageway now and then and stopped to catch her breath at last we reached the top it was only a half room up there I 1 could stand up straight only when I 1 gained the middle of the room on a bed in a dark corner lay eight babies halt undressed and crying and squirming in milk bottled and dirty clothes were scattered over the floor the one window in the at tic was closed securely by a nail I 1 hurried down all for the greed of moneal fight babies in the attic eight below tour children of her own two baird ers nn aged father her husband and herself to care for ait living in four rooms and an attic this Is what the greed for money had led one woman to besides she washed and ironed and did all her housework while car ing for the boarding babies A bleak wall on an unpaved street was the exterior of a bertam baba farm in a third floor flat down in the cards pushing tha button above the speaking tube in the middle of the wall I 1 listened chos there came down through the mouthpiece I 1 wish to come up take the back stairs came tha answer Fo bolong long the broken board walk I 1 squeezed between two walla and climbed the rickety back stairs the surprised german maid announce I 1 that her mistress was not at home when I 1 pushed through the screen door I 1 felt relieved that it gasn wasn t necessary to have the responsibility of a elx weeks old baby on ray hands to board 1 I changed the age of the child from one year to sir behs nn V f t ato A r the way down on the street car alt I 1 had to do at the second baby farm was to look around room in general disarray on the floor in the kitchen lay tow babies kicking first one pink sock in the air and then a white one I 1 noticed that the stockings of most of the babler were not mates on the katch en table stood three clothes baskets and in each was an infant walling piteously in the corners on chairs beside the kitchen range hanging like cocoons everywhere were basket with babies sleeping on pillows turned brown from thero were nine in the kitchen alone in the next room were more trail babies howling from their go carts cribs and baskets and in the front room more babler cried an infant covered by a mosquito bar lay apart she had sore eyes milk not even boiled A seventeen year old mother stood leaning over a sleeping baby in the parlor hes mine hla name is fred she whispered he look bad they almost killed him after I 1 left him here six weeks he was so neglected that he had spasms I 1 had to give up my work in the factory and watch him for three weeks he s still thin the doctor said he was starving by inches one time when I 1 cama to visit him I 1 found him drinking raw milk that had not been boiled another time when I 1 came unexpectedly to see my baby I 1 found a strange baby wearing my babas clothes the superintendent of the baby farm Is cruel to the older children ashes too strict allow them to play in the yard and makes them sit in a chair all day when she is around she sends them oft to school without breakfast and they have only bread and molasses tor lunch one morning I 1 had a spare hour before I 1 had to ha at the factory I 1 ran down to see my baby I 1 did not see the older children eating breakfast I 1 asked mary the oldest child it she bad had her arak fast she answered that none of the children had As a punishment the superintend ent of the baby farm makes the children stand in a corner for hours when they are naughty she has a dark closet tor the mischievous she pours castor oil and other lubel cants down the throats ot youngsters who tell falsehoods or washes their mouths out with strong boap to keep them from telling stories they must in a subdued way in the kitchen it they play at all little incentive to laughter I 1 glanced at the three little garli and the one little boy sitting around the kitchen table stacking a deck of greasy playing cards they looked as if they never smiled the maid fished a bottle of milk from the tin boiler full ot hot water on the kitchen range she carried it into the second room A loud scream of pain came from the second room the seventeen year old mother and I 1 ran to the rescue of the infant in als tress the mother reached the child first she cooled the hot bottle of milk under a faucet in the kitchen how they attend to babies giving them boiling milk snapped the moth er trying to relieve the burped child s pain while the maid mumbled 1 I know how the milk should be its not too hot it Is usually one long hard struggle with neglect and continuous descom fort for the children two infants were killed from at one farm the records show one child Is whipped with a rawhide by an at the mother claimed a babas were burned an infant was scalded on the side when the mother called for a visit anyhow the sixteen infants in this baby farm in the third floor flat down in the yards looked like plants kept away from the sun many reasons for seclusion the children are kept housed for many reasons because the neighbors do not like to have so many children around and give the superintendent of a baby farm trouble in finding a flat because there Is danger from contagious disease when infants arp taken abroad or because the woman farmer Is too proud to let it be known that she boards babies for a one proprietor of a baby farm has four grown daughters who are devotees of fashion these daughters object to the baby farm and the in cants although they have no compunctions ions against spending the in come from ahta source one daughter attends normal school from money earned by her mother in the baby farm yet daughter will do nothing for the babies when at home she dislikes to have them around achl cago tribune |