"_The love affair of a middle-aged painter, Charles Godin, with his model Georgette Belli, aged 16, has led to a remarkable charge of murder. Georgette became a mother, and when the painter died a few months later he left the child L8000._ "_The girl married a young man named Emile Gourdon, and the baby was placed in the care of a grandmother. Later, when the young mother wished to get back her child, the grandmother refused to give it up on the ground that the young couple meant to destroy it in order to inherit the money, and produced letters and telegrams in support of her suspicion. Georgette, however, got an order from a court for the surrender of the baby, and went to live at Marseilles with her husband._ "_One day, while walking on the jetty, the woman appeared to stumble and the child fell into the sea and was drowned. The couple have been arrested, the woman, it is alleged, having pretended to faint in order to make away with her child._" Now, I know that these five cases I have recounted are not exceptional, though some of their sordid details may be specially disagreeable. Give but a moment's attention to the facts that stand out, and at once you will grasp what is wrong. We are demanding too much from these unmarried mothers, and, by leaving the full power of parenthood in their weak hands, are jeopardizing the child's safety; we are also encouraging conditions harmful to society. It is like leaving a loaded gun in the hands of a little child. These cases speak for themselves. In No. 3 and No. 5 the child was killed by the direct act of the mother; in the former case there was some excuse from the harsh rule that the sick baby of an unmarried mother cannot be received into a hospital unless the mother goes in with it (the reason of this, of course, being that the mother will use this means of ridding herself of the baby) and will never come to reclaim it; but in the horrible case of No. 5 there is no ray of excuse. This case is especially interesting because it makes so abundantly plain the terrible need there is for the immediate establishment of safe legal adoption. In cases No. 2 and No. 4 we have the curious situation, by no means so uncommon as many might think, of the wrong man acting the part of father to an illegitimately born child; in the one case this was done through the trickery of the mother and was but temporary, the child suffering, while in the other case, more interesting and less common, vicarious fatherhood was voluntarily adopted. I would ask you to note that in none of the five cases was bad motherhood caused by poverty and homelessness. So frequently it is said: "Give these mothers a chance, and their mother-love will blossom like the rose"--or some similar and unproved tosh. It is not true. The good mother may be a bad mother by adverse circumstances, this I acknowledge readily, but that the most favorable circumstances can make the bad mother into a good mother, I emphatically deny. This is why it is so