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Show uu tiidfnuio nLrio (Dy International News Service.) DETROIT. Mich. Mother love, ordinarily or-dinarily regarded as the supremo symbol sym-bol of constancy, proved to be a poor second to father love hi Detroit dur-; dur-; Ing the last three ' months. According, Accord-ing, to figures given out by thu St. i Vincent Do Paul Society, in that period 21 mothers ran away from home and left their children. Only J16 fathers deserted in the same 'e-' 'e-' Hod. I James Fitzgerald, secretary of thi society, points out that although laws ! against vlfe desertion arc considered I entirely too lax, machinery can be sot J in motion to bring a deserting h.us-i h.us-i band back in somo-cascs. bin, he says, j there is nothing in the statute's which makes a mother liable except in cases v. hero infants aro abandoned. I "The result seems to be," Fltzgor-' Fltzgor-' aid declared, "that social workers j generally arc viewing this new ton- doncy In tho part of mothers with a great deal of alarm. It Is bad enough when a man forgets his duty and loaves his family In distress. !ui winn a mother forgets to protect htr young, what can society do. So far us money goes, the children so deserted can i bo fed and clothed. But there Is no' substitute in the world fr motherhood, mother-hood, and no effort which vo can make to obtain a substitute ovor really fills the bill. "In one case a mother deserted three children, eloping with the fam-j ily boarder. The husband was b:iying a house on contract and the wife's chief source of dissatisCaction was I I that she was obliged to cire for one : of the children who in paralyzed. Through free medicai i'.d the lny is now able to walk, the mother look with her the two-yeai-oUl '.mby, S100 j and considerable of the housn fur-i fur-i nishings. y I "A large proportion of desertions I are among young couples. A 2-i-year-old wife whoso husband came "here I from Cleveland five months' ago and I is earning 60 cents an hour ran away March 19, leaving a baby less ihana year old. An Italian wife who cimo to Detroit from Paris, Prance, six years ago ran away in November, leaving two children behind." |