Moch

This is an application after notice for a peremptory writ of mandate to require the respondent, sitting as a juvenile court, to proceed with the hearing and determination of a proceeding before it under section 15 of the juvenile court law. (Act 1770a of Deering’s General Laws, p. 747.) There is no controversy as to the facts and the matter is submitted upon the petition for the writ and general demurrer thereto.

The petitioners herein filed their petition in said juvenile court November 30, 1917, to have one Donna Spencer Lee, an infant child, declared free from the custody and control of her parents, as provided in said section 15 of said act. It was alleged that petitioners had received said child July 27, 1916, from the Children’s Home Finding Society and had ever since kept and maintained her in their home; that the father ■had abandoned said child and its mother shortly after the birth of the former and had never contributed anything to its support; that on May 27, 1916, the mother, “with the intention of then and there abandoning, relinquishing, and surrendering her infant child,” signed and executed a written relinquishment of the child to Mrs. Porter, a probation…