Ogden Daily Standard | 1918-01-16 | Page 7 | Girl's Age Fixed by the Date of Birth of a Calf

I GIBL'S AGE FIXED Bf THE BATE OF BIRTH OF A CALF I "As a usual thing, I am a man of calm and even temper. But occasionally occasion-ally I am driven to disgust and anger and my feelings impel me to criticism." criti-cism." That was the explanatory prelude to a statement issuing from George Shorten, city sanitary commissioner, this morning after he had opened his mail and discovered that out of the ten births reported, two had failed to include the sex of the child; two , others were dated last year, and another an-other had neglected to state the home address. "The state authorities, of course, will be notified of this negligence and enforce a proper respect for the laws governing the report of vital statistics," statis-tics," continued the commissioner. "I am unable to understand why parents and physicians and nurses practice such carelessness. Undoubtedly, they are familiar with the law and know tutu, uiesn ifjjuiis luutti ue accurately and promptly made.' "Just the other day, to Indicate necessity nec-essity from proper reports, a young lady, a pretty, attractive, intelligent society debutante, insisted that her fathor make good his promise to give her a diamond ring on her nineteenth birthday. " 'But your're not nineteen,1 the father said. 'You're only seventeen.' ' "The argument waxed warm. There was no statistics at the city hall or courthouse to help out and the family bible offered no assistance in that it contained no record of births. Thoy were up against a circumsLince until a farmer came to their rescue. " 'She Is seventeen,' said the farmer. 'I know because we had a Jersey calf born on the same night I have a record of the calf's birth and recollect that your daughter was born on the Identical date.' "That was a pretty mess, wasn't it? A nice, good, sweet girl growing into womanhood and it required the coincidental co-incidental fact that a calf was born on tho same night to conclusively establish estab-lish her exact age. Physicians and nurses and parents should give these birth reports a more definite and careful care-ful attention."