JUDICIARY: Sabath After Solomon

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Before Judge Adolph Joseph Sabath in Chicago last week stood Mrs. Charles Bamberger and Mrs. William Watkins, participants in a prolonged public dispute as to the identity of their respective babies after an apparent mix-up at a Chicago maternity hospital (TIME, July 28,et seq.). Each mother held a blue-eyed, snub-nosed son in her arms. Judge Sabath signed an order giving to each legal possession of the child she held. Yet he was still uncertain in his own mind as to which baby was which. Since there were two children, the famed maternity case of Harlot v. Harlot as decided by Judge Solomon of Israel in B. C. 1014 afforded him no precedent. He arose to the occasion, however, as follows:

"What you parents should do is to live close to each other until the development of natural characteristics finally proves the babies' identity. You should bring them up as brothers, letting each boy have two fathers and two mothers.. Your happiness and prosperity are now interlocking and if time should prove human judgment erring, the boys could be restored to their real parents without violence of estrangement. . . . And, oh, yes, I'd like to see them once in a while as they grow up. If you're too busy to bring them down to see me, I'll come out if you'll invite me."