Helping Out With Crisis Pregnancies In 1910

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I found this classified advertisement from 1910 most affecting. Poor Mgr Nugent and Fr Walsh, who could probably never have imagined that the slaughter of unwanted children would become industrialised.  At least they did what could, and it strikes me as like the acts of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta: something beautiful for God.

SAVE THE MOTHER AND THE CHILD !

HOUSE OF PROVIDENCE

West Dingle, Liverpool

UNDER THE CARE OF SISTERS OF THE SACRED HEARTS OF JESUS AND MARY

This Institution was founded in 1897 by the late Rt Rev Mgr Nugent, its chief object being to provide a safe refuge for young unwedded mothers and their infants. and thereby to prevent the prevalent destruction of child life. Infanticide under some of its worst forms has become so widespread that an asylum of this character had long been an urgent necessity. Each week sets forth gruesome accounts of the finding of dead bodies of infants, often horribly mutilated. How many unfortunate unmarried mothers have fallen through circumstances rather than choice or wilfulness? Ruined and then cruelly deserted, they seek to hide their shame by resorting to acts from which they would otherwise naturally shrink in horror.

The knowledge gained by Father Nugent during twenty-two years' chaplaincy in the Liverpool Prison induced him to endeavour by these means to remedy in some degree, this growing evil. No infant is admitted unless the mother enters with it, and remains at least twelve months to nurse and work for her child. the natural maternal tie is thus fostered and maintained, with the satisfactory results as shown by the working of the Institution and the very gratifying successes already achieved. Help is now much needed to support and develop this merciful and beneficent agency for the saving of both mother and child.

A few words as to how the mother and child are saved may not be out of place. Whilst in the Institution at West Dingle, the mother is reformed and thoroughly confirmed in a life of virtue. She tends her own babe as one of her many daily duties. Then when she goes forth once more into the world, the devoted Sisters always see that she has a safe and respectable livelihood, which enables her to bring up her little one in security and adequate comfort.

Donations and subscriptions to be sent to the Rev Edmund Walsh, St Thomas, Waterloo, Liverpool, or the Rev Mother, West Dingle, Liverpool.