William Feilden Craies and Thomas Allan Ingram

“ The only points in which infancy created a defect in civil status were that infants were subject to the restraints on complete freedom of action involved in their being in the legal custody of the father, and that it was and is lawful for parents, guardians, employers and teachers to inflict corporal punishment proportioned in amount and severity to the nature of the fault committed and the age and mental capacity of the child punished. ”

“ Cruelty is defined as consisting in assault, ill-treatment (falling short of actual assault) , neglect, abandonment or exposure of the child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health, including injury to or loss of sight, hearing or limb, or any organ of the body or any mental derangement ”

“ Relatives or legal guardians of an infant who undertake its nursing and maintenance, hospitals, convalescent homes, or institutions, established for the protection and care of infants, and conducted in good faith for religious and charitable purposes, as well as boarding schools at which efficient elementary education is given, are exempt from the provisions of the act. ”

“ In the application of the act to Ireland exception is made relative to the exclusion of children from bars of licensed premises, in the case of a child being on licensed premises where a substantial part of the business carried on is a drapery, grocery, hardware or other business wholly unconnected with the sale of intoxicating liquor, and the child is there for the purpose of purchasing goods other than intoxicating liquor. ”

“ Their real efficacy lies in the main in the provisions which facilitate the taking of evidence of young children, in permitting poor law authorities to prosecute at the expense of the rates, and in permitting a constable on arresting the offender to take the child away from the accused, and the court of trial on conviction to transfer the custody of the child from the offender to some fit and willing person, including any society or body corporate established for the reception of poor children or for the prevention of cruelty to children. ”

“ CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO. English law has always in theory given to children the same remedies as to adults for ill-usage, whether by their parents or by others, and has never recognized the patria potestas as known to the earlier Roman law; and while powers of discipline and chastisement have been regarded as necessarily incident to paternal authority, the father is civilly liable to his children for wrongs done to them. ”

“ A parent or other person legally liable to maintain a child or young person will be deemed to have “neglected” him by failure to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid, or lodging, or if in the event of inability to provide such food, &c., by failure to take steps to procure the same under acts relating to the relief of the poor. ”

“ In the act of 1908, “child” is defined as a person under the age of fourteen years, and “young person” as a person who is fourteen years and upwards and under the age of sixteen years. The act applies to Scotland and Ireland. ”

“ The chief progress in the direction of adequate protection for children prior to 1889 lay less in positive legal enactment on the subject than in the institution of an effective system of police, whereby it became possible to discover and repress cruelty punishable under the ordinary law. ”

“ Provision is made against allowing children between the ages of four and sixteen to be in brothels; it is also made a misdemeanour if any custodian, &c., of a girl under sixteen causes or encourages her seduction or prostitution, and any person having the custody of a young girl may be bound over to exercise proper care if it is shown to the satisfaction of a court of summary jurisdiction, on the complaint of any person, that she is exposed to such risk. ”

“ In South Australia a State Children’s Department has been created to care for and manage the property and persons of destitute and neglected children, and the officials of the council may act in cases of cruelty to children ”

“ The conception of what constitutes cruelty to children undoubtedly changed considerably with the relaxation of the accepted standard of severity in domestic or scholastic discipline and with the growth of new ideas as to the duties of parents to children, which in their latest developments tend enormously to enlarge the parental duties without any corresponding increase of filial obligations. ”

“ The provisions of the acts as to procedure and custody extend not only to the offence of cruelty but also to all offences involving bodily injury to a child under sixteen, such as abandonment, assault, kidnapping and illegally engaging a child in a dangerous public performance. ”

“ The act of 1908, following legislation in many parts of the United States and in some of the British colonies, places a penalty on selling tobacco to any person apparently under the age of sixteen, whether for his own use or not. ”

“ Any custodian, &c., of a child under seven who allows that child to be in a room Containing an open grate not sufficiently protected to guard against the risk of burning or scalding is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £10. ”