newspaper will have interested a fair number of Bermuda's mothers. It was about attempts in the United States to collect child support payments from fathers.

It would seem that the United States has no easier time collecting from "deadbeat dads'' than Bermuda does. Bermuda has discussed the problem.

Bermuda has complained about non-payment. Bermuda has tightened the law surrounding payment and agreed to all sorts of other measures. Recently there have been arrests in Bermuda of fathers who have not been making the payments.

It does seem that a threat of immediate jail shakes the cash loose from somewhere. However, the problem goes on and jail is not the solution for fathers for a number of reasons, including the fact that if they cannot work they have no hope of paying.

In the United States it is estimated that $14 billion is owed to some nine million children by people who are behind in child-support payments.

The United States has taken strong steps to solve its problem without a great many results. Government agencies were only able to collect 19 percent of the time in 1993. Part of the problem seems to be that the US creates good laws but fails to use them. As an example, the United States Congress passed a law in 1992 making it a federal offence to cross state lines to avoid paying child support. Only five people have been prosecuted. A Texas deadbeat who moved to Colorado to escape set up his answering machine to play, "All my exes live in Texas.'' Bermuda has often discussed interrupting people's travel plans by stopping them at the Airport if their support is not paid-up. It seems to take that kind of punishing action to get results. At least two states in the United States -- Maine and South Dakota -- allow authorities to take driver's licences away from people who have not paid.

But the most significant development in the United States is that now private agencies are moving into the support payments field, acting as bounty hunters by tracking down fathers who have eluded government agencies. The wise guy from Texas with the answering machine was nailed by one of them. Two states, Mississippi and Utah, have hired private agencies to help them collect. But most companies operate privately.

There are 49 companies collecting child support at offices in 29 states. Most require an application fee and then charge a 25 percent commission on the money they collect. There is no real indication that support collection agencies will solve the problem but they are collecting money. The answer is that they are more energetic and more persistent than Government agencies.

Some of these agencies have been organised by women who understand the problem because they have been unable to collect themselves. They are determined to help themselves, and others.