Ashby v. . Page

11 S.E. 283, 106 N.C. 328

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: February 5, 1890
• Status: Published

Opinion

Davis, J.:

The judgment of the Court below seems to have been based upon the assumption that it was within the discretion of the Court to apprentice the child to “the most suitable person to raise and care” for her, and provide for her “a good home,” for these are the only facts found. This is a misapprehension of the law.

Chapter 169 of the Acts of 1889, “in relation to indigent and other apprentices” (by which the present case is governed), authorizes the Clerk to apprentice (1) “All orphans whose estates are of so small value that no person will educate and maintain them for the benefit thereof; (2) all infants whose fathers have deserted their families and been absent six months; (3) any poor child who is, or may be, chargeable to the county, or who shall beg alms; (4) any child who has no father, and the mother is of bad character, or suffers her children to grow up in habits of idleness, without any visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood; (5) all infants whose parents do not habitually employ their time in some honest, industrious occupation.”

The only facts found are set out in the judgment, and they do not bring Mary E. M. Calhoun within any one of the five ‘clauses mentioned in the statute, and it does not appear from them that she is a proper subject to be bound out at all. If the mother be a suitable person, and the child does not come within any of the clauses mentioned, she is entitled to its custody, even though some other may be “more suitable.” Mitchell v. Mitchell, 67 N. C., 307.

Error.