The Express.
London, England, 1864-07-28 00:00:00

NUMMI

Tins 2711:111110. BORN TO tiocrtrar. Mr. D. Murray.
—And THE MONAsTERY OP ST. TUN% Mama. Vining,
Marston. Nelson, Ray, and Mellon; Mdlle. Mann Colas and
Mra. Mandan.

_BILITAIIIIA..

THIS zymase. THE SUNS OF CHIME. - Singing by
Jdeadames L.:0,1,1n', Constance. and Mr. H. Hew. —Dancing by
Wilt. C. Stephan. —And TILE TALLYMAN.

NM WALTZ AT LONDON DILDON.
Ton DAY Varela& 9ti. Nt 53g.
20• N ANON 101. ....Aboves% 1111. 10i

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 28.

Tax proceedings of the Society for the Preser-
vation of Infant Life cannot but be regarded with
strong interest, both for the sake of its object and
on other grounds. The evil is so terrible,
the increase of infanticide being considerably
greater than that of the population of the metro-
politan county, that no one can look with indiffe-
rence on any effort to deal with it. At the same
time there is, as experience has shown, so strong a
possibility of aggravating the mischief by well-
meant endeavours to mitigate it, that those
who know what has at any time been done with
good or bad effect are bound to contribute their
knowledge to the movement.
We are glad to see that the proposal of setting
up Foundling Hospitals appears to be dropped.
One speaker at the public meeting held last
week evidently hankers after this supposed
remedy ; but he will not find supporters in his
denial " that an institution which was intended
" for the purposes of amelioration could be ha-
" moraL" The former principle of our Foundling
Hospital, which he complains has been departed
from, caused an increase of illegitimate infants
thrown upon the charity of from a little over one
hundred to five thousand in a year. In three
years 15,000 of these miserable infants were depo-
sited in the concealed way which the Rev. Dr.
WORTHINGTON thinks essential to the proper work-
ing of the charity. He pleads for secrecy as a
safeguard to the infants' life : yet how did it issue
in the very institution to which he referred f Of
those 15,000 children only 4,400 lived to be
apprenticed So much for the preservation of
infant life by the method of keeping the mother's
secret, and relieving her of the burden of her child !
Stich statistics as the history of our Foundling
Hospital, and of all the foundling hospitals in
Europe discloses, may well have discouraged the
new society from proposing relief under
that name. The mere fact that lazy and
profligate parents used the charity largely
to disencumber themselves of their children
born in wedlock, is warning enough against ever
setting up such au institution again. But the new
proposal, even if it avoids that indulgence to bad
married people, which is doubtful, involves all the
worst arrangements of foundling hospitals, by
which they have been made the most effective
agencies for the encouragement of Foentionsness,
and the most cruel destroyers of infant life that
have ever existed in a Christian country.
The proposal is of an institution where
the mothers of illegitimate children shall
be received in inviolable secrecy—the coming
in and going out being managed in " complete
"concealment." Mother and child are to be well
nursed and made comfortable ; and before the
mother departs, "means of the identification of
" the child by the mother afterwards" are to be
provided. If the child is thus to be left behind,
the institution is to be a foundling hospital in all
but the name ; and how many of the mothers is
it supposed will ever come back ? The separation
will have chilled the affection which is alone ade-
quate to enable a woman to take upon herself the
shame and the burden of her child. If there ever
IVY danger of the mothe• destroying the infant at
birth, there must be at least as much danger of
her doing the deed after separation, and when the
fact of her having a child can no longer be con-
cealed. In practice, however, the children would
be deserted in nine cases out of ten.
And what sort of an institution would meet
the demand far accommodation which could not
but arise ? A promise to secure fallen women
from the consequences of their frailty would give
such an encouragement to seducers, and add so
cruelly to the strength of the temptation in the
woman's case, that there would be a spread of vice
like that which followed the adoption of the charity
of secrecy in Paris, in Vienna, in Rome, in Lon-
don, and wherever it has been adopted. The
illegitimate births in France were one-thirteenth
before, and they increased to one-third as soon as
means of concealment were provided. In Vienna
the well-known asylum for anonymous mothers to
be confined in—with its secret entrance from an
alley, and its easy-opening and noiseless doors, was
over-crowded presently ; and then another and
another was wanted ; and no energy of charity
could at all keep pace with the demand. Here is
a warning to the new society which held its meet-
ing last week. By setting up such an insti-
tution they hold out a promise of impunity
for the particular sin. It would be for-
midable enough to be resorted to by only those
wbo might be assumed to be otherwise the pre-
destined murderers of their infants ; bat what is
to be done with all the rest T The society will bevel
upon its hands the mothers of all the unboia
bastards in London, and in • year or two they
will have a multitude more who might never have
fallen but for this encouragement to an and escape
the shame and burden of it. Not • hundredth—
not a thousandth part of the claims being
admissible, what will happen t Why, such an
amount of child murder as will appal the most
careless and cold-hearted among us. This is no

fancy picture. It is simply an iteootpxt of eilai
has actually happened wherever tie alloremeni of
secrecy has been held out, whether by Popes will
their turning-boxes, or by Sr. Vl:Nester Da PAUL
with his hospitals, or by kind-hearted Empresses,
who think to show indulgence to the frail of their
own sex. In such cues it is as if little corpses
fell from the clouds. They float on the rivers, they
are found under trees, they turn up in
gardens, they tumble out of dust heaps. They
are maddening to the eyes and the minds
of the charitable who have made the mistake and
the only thing to be done I. to retrace the false

step. This is not reparation—there can be no re-
paration in such a case ; the mischief done cannot
be undone ; the license cannot be reduced to what
it was before. The one possible good is that the
fearful experiment may be a warning to all who
come after. One would think that it must be for
ever a warning against encouraging one sin in the
hope of checking another. Yet here we see, at
this day, a resolution in favour of an institution
such as we have described carried in public meeting
by a majority of 32 to 21. Carried, too, in the
face of an admirable protest from the Secretary of
the Society for Enforcing the Law for the Pro-
tection of Women. This gentleman, by his speech,
showed himself a better protector of both women
and children than the majority who have adven-
tured the tremendous responsibility involved in
carrying the resolution.
As to the question—What is to be done, then f
How can the practice of infanticide be checked I—
the answer is longer than we can give here. All
we can at the moment say is that no good can be
done by soothing feelings after the mischief is
done, instead of dealing with the mischief in its
deep and complex causes. If this society likes,
let it try the effect of increasing the father's pecu-
niary penalty. This would probably do no more
harm than would be compensated by the experience
it would afford to the movers. Let them by all
means urge the reform suggested by their chair-
man, Dr. L&NKESlER—exchanging the merely
nominal punishment of death for a punishment
which should be real and definite, and, therefore,
more likely to be deterrent.
The real remedy, however, is to be found in a
social condition and mode of life which shall be
favourable to marriage, throughout all ranks, and
in such improvement in the intelligence, the in-
terests, and the manners of women as shall invest
them with the safety of self-respect, of a frame of
body and mind favourable to moral health. As
the first step in this long process, it may be sug-
gested to the mistresses of household servant.—
the employers of the class most disgraced by this
species of murder—whether they may not them-
selves do something on behalf of sobriety of mind
and manners by showing in their own conduct
some consideration for these weak and ignorant
sisters of theirs—eomething more than at present
of the moderation in dress and pleasures, and the
housewifeliness which once honourably distin-
guished the matronage of England.

Cbe erourt.

OSBORNE. JULY 27.

Her Majtety, accompanied by Prince and Prin-
cess Look of Home and Primers Beatrice, drove oat yester-
day. Major-General Seymour was is attendance.
The Duke of Cambridge, attended y Ookeel Clifton,
arrived at Osborne from London yesterday events'.

A Cabinet Council was held yester lay at the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury,
in Downing-street. The ministers present were
Viscount Palmerston, the Lord Chancellor, Earl
Granville, Sir George Grey, Earl Russell, the
Right How. Edward Cardwell, Earl de Grey,
Sir Charles Wood, the Duke of Somerset, the
Right Hon. T. Milner Gibson, the Earl of
Clarendon, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and the
Right Hon. 0. P. Villiers.

Bar Majesty holds aCourcil to-day (Thursday) at Osborn
at ow o'clock.

A meeting of the governors of Wellington College mos
held in the Palace of Westminster yesterday. Prescott—
The Earl of Derby, K.G., Lord Redesdale, Lord Everaleys
the Right Hoe. S. H. Walpole, Mr. H. R. Con, the Rev. E.
W. Benson (Heedmaater), and Mr. Chance (Stremenry).

The foundation stone of a cross in memory of the
medial caws who fell in the Crimea will, it is expected,
be laid at :Utley Hospital by his Royal Highness the Prince
of Wales on the lot pm:into.

His Royal Highness Prince Leopold will lay the
firvt Mose of a new infirmary at Blimp's Waltham, is
Hampshire, OD Thursday, August 4. Hu Royal Higlosers
Prince Loris of Hesse will probably be present.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cam-
bridge and Princess Mary are expected to leave Cambridge
Cottage• Kew, about the middle of next month ea a tour.
The Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire has arrived at
the Portland Hotel, Southsea, from London.
The Countess of Dunmore arrived at her residence
on Carlton•houee•terrace on Toeaday evening from Dun-
more Park, near Stirling,

Katherine Dowager Countess of Dundonala is
still at her resideare at Nettilly, near Paris. Her ladyship
is preseated by severe indisposition from proceediag to
Vichy, u she iisteadcd.

Count and Counteea de Flahault have arrived at
Coventry Bonne, Piccadilly, from Germany. The sable
count and countess will shortly leave town on a visit to the
Martinis and Ifarchionest of Ltruslonise at Bowood, and
then go to the countess's seat in Scotland for the shooting
IMMO.

Viscount and Viscountess de Vesci and the Bon.
Misses Vesey will leave their residence on Carlton-ha:res-
tores°. for their seat in Ireland early in the ensuing week.
The Baron de Mattis and the Baroness de Mauls
and family have left Thomas's Hotel, Berkeley-square, for
Germs ny,

Lady Llanover has had several receptions during
the last week, including two afternoon assemblies with
dancing parties, and one evening dance, all of which were
numerously attended.

The Marquis di Castani t has left the Brunswick,
Jermyn-street, for Psris, on Me return to Italy.

The Duke and Duchess of Athole are expected
home early in November from North America, when the
noble duke is doing duty with the let Betteline of the
Scots Fusilier Onside in Oaneda.

The Earl de Grey will leave town early in the
ensuing week for a tour of inspection of the military forti-
fications on the western coasts. The sonata's will stay
during the noble earl's absence with the Counties of itipoa
at Putney.

We (Horning Post) are requested to state that
Lady Florence Paget did not, se stated by a contemporary,
take her departure, on the morning of her marriage with
Lord Harting% from St. George's Hotel in her father's
brougham ; but that she went from her father's house in
Portland-place, where she was living, in a carriage hired to
take her out shopping, and that she was met by Mrs. Gran-
ville (and not by Lord Hastings's sister), who took her to
St. George's Church.

Lady Harriet Ellerton expired on the 27th inst.,
after a lingering illness, it her residence, in Connaught.
place, Hyde-park. Her ladyship was the youngest daughter
of the seventh Earl of Scarborough, and was twice married,
first to the Rev. Frederick Manners-Sutton, and secondly,
in 1837, tr, Mr. J. L Ellerton.

Lord Henry, and not Lord Robert, LoftuA has
arrived at the Alezeedra Hotel.

The Baron and Baroness Buigenstein have re-
turned to the Brunswick Hotel. Jermywetreet, fres a tear
is the Highlands.

Hon. Senator and Mrs. H. H. Hamilton bare
left the Brunswick Hotel, Jermyn-street. On their way to
Switzerland.

►sy „

s' z, THUBSD.
e: TEST INTELLIGESUB.
~_y 4moisir. misanamm,)
SPAIN.
MADRIt, JuL2 27.
A royal decree issued to-day appoints a commit-
tee of directors to erect a statue in honour of Chris-
topher Columbus.
Senor Mon will proceed to Asturiaa shortly.

BOMBAY AND MAURITIUS MAILS.
ALEXANDRIA, 7EILY 27.
The Euxine and Masailia, with the above mays,
left here at 4 p.m. this day.
The former may be expected at Marseilles about
the 2nd, and the latter at Southampton about the
Bth August.
The Salsette, with the outward mail of the 12th-
18th July, left Suez for Bombay at noon this day.