The insurance of children. : The argument of John D. Long before the Committee on insurance of the Massachusetts Legislature, April 4, 1895, on the bill to prohibit insurance of children under 10 years of age. Amended copy of stenographic report.

  • Long, John D.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The insurance of children. : The argument of John D. Long before the Committee on insurance of the Massachusetts Legislature, April 4, 1895, on the bill to prohibit insurance of children under 10 years of age. Amended copy of stenographic report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    21/48 (page 19)
    What has that case to do with child insurance? The only child in that family that was insured is still living and in good condition, and the children that were not insured are the ones that died. CASE. A case, which my brother Reed said we have not met, vvc could not meet, because Mrs. Atwood told us that the present whereabout of the parties is unknown. CASE. Here is a case which Mrs. Atwood dwelt upon yesterday or the day before. In this case we furnish you with a letter from the woman herself, who says she never received assist- ance. But take Mrs. Atwood's own statement, and what is it? It is a case of wretched drunkenness. The father, she says, is a maniac when in liquor, so that his children are then in danger of death at any time as well as his wife. She says they live in fear of being killed by this drunken maniac, — a good fellow when he is sober, but a maniac when he is drunk. What then has child insurance to do with the misery there ? Suppose, in order to keep alive some of the policies that were taken out when times were better, there is a payment now made of a few cents a week. It is the little pittance got out from the father which even if it were not paid for insurance would go not for food but for strong drink. The man earns about $13 a week when he works. The misery or neglect there certainly is not due to child^ insurance. Indeed, in such a family insurance would seem to be a good thing. THE FINN CASE. You come next to the Finn case, where two children, two and a half and one year old, died, it was claimed, of starvation ; and yet we show you certificates from the registrar's office that one died of meningitis, and the other died of tubercular men- ingitis. That is also the statement made by one of the physi- cians. Dr. Conn. Since then he is said to have said something to the contrary. But I prefer his official return at the time to any hearsay report of what he has said since then. But waiving him, you have the statement of Dr. MacDonald, the other physician, sworn to before a justice of the peace, to the