The Express.
London, England, 1863-02-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13.

Ir we may trust s paragraph which has been
going the round of the papers, a Coroner in the
East of London has been advocating at an inquest
the establishment of Foundling Hospitals as a re-

medy for the infanticide which is one of our chief
disgraces and afflictions. "Several gentlemen pre-
" sent," we are told, "concurred with the Coroner
"as to the necessity of such an institution,
" and stated that they would subscribe towards
" its erection." We cannot but suppose
that both the Coroner and these gentlemen must
be very young men—unaware of what everybody
knew thirty years ago about the operation of
Foundling Hospitals, or they would no more have
proposed to check child-murder by such means
than to extinguish licentiousness. The fact of the
enormous increase of vice, and of child-murder,
wherever Foundling Hospitals have been esta-
blished, has been hitherto supposed, too easily we
now perceive, to be universally understood. We
must hope that the citizens who live within this
Coroner's district are too well aware of the fact to be
induced to countenance his scheme ; but the mere

mention of such a project, and its meeting with I
any countenance at all, are a call upon us to warn
the parties and the public against as grave and
unpardonable a mistake as ignorant benevolence
and thoughtless sentiment could commit.
The constancy of the results from all insti-
tutions of the class is remarkable. In the earliest
cases, when one or two heathen polities endea-
voured to check the mortality caused by the ex-
posure of infants by providing a refuge where
children were reared, to become slaves of the
State, the exposures increased, as might have
been expected. In the early days of conventual
celibacy, when babes were found in holes and
corners, and were seen floating down the riven,
they were numerous in proportion to the efforts
made to provide for the exposed infanta. The
Popes felt and thought exactly as our Coroner of
East London feels and thi.nks ; and to save the
mothers' feelings and the infants' lives, the Holy
Fathers devised the plan of the turning-box in the
hospital wall, by which the babes might be re-
ceived without the bringers being seen. The con-
sequent increase of illegitimacy threatened the
dissolution of society, as it would with us now,
if we were to follow the same course. Sr.
VIRCINT DI PAUL was shocked at the number
of children deserted in the streets of Paris ;
and he applied himself to the reformation and
extension of Foundling Hospitals. The result was
that whereas the number of illegitimate births in
France, when such estimates were set about, was
one•tb;rteenth where no such refuges existed, it
had risen to above one-third in Paris within the
range of the Asylum for Foundlings. The same
experience has been universal up to this day.
After every allowance made for the tricks of well-
to-do citizens and members of the aristocracy who
may have inconvenient children to dispose of, and
of guardians of the poor, who may be tempted to
get rid of some of the burdens of their datrict,
and of married poor people under a yet stronger
temptation, there is evidence of a rapid and con-
stant increase of seduction, tending to a complete
disappearance of female virtue, wherever these in-
stitutions arias to relieve the unchaste from the
burdensome consequences of their aio. Here are
some of the facts.

Within five-sad•forty years the foundlings in
Paris have trebled in number, under the encou-
ragement of the Hospital approm iatcd to them.
That Hospital received five thousand new-born
babes a year in 1847. Have our readers ever
been within its walls I Have they seen the
arrangements—the best practicable under suc'i
pressure of numbers 1 If they have, they will
scarcely be surprised to hear that two-thirds of
the infants die during the first year. Yet the
increase of numbers goes on ; and we now hear of
the intention of the EMPEVIII to found another
such asylum ! If she cannot learn from prior ex-
periments, let us hope that our East London Coro-
ner may. It appears that of illegitimate children
in Paris, 58 per cent. are abandoned by their
mothers, within the range of the Hospital. As
for Vienna, the story of the provision made for
the encouragement of profligacy is too gross for

production here. The well-known coarse descrip-
tion that JOSEPH 11. gave of the capital of his
dominions may serve for whet it has been ever
since, according to tin statistics of its Foundling
and Lying-in Hospitals. The Foundling Hospital
of St. Petersburg contained in 1790 300 children.
The number increased, of course, and, fortunately,
we know what the increase was. Within the first
forty years it had grown from 300 to 3,000 per
annum ; and in seven years more to 7,000. More
and more dormitories, school-rooms, and chapels
have been added to the original provision ; and
still the number of helpless pensioners augments ;
and, though they are sent out to nurse after air
weeks, the asylum is always crowded. There /113
700 wet nurses in the establishment ; yet one-
foarth of the infants die within those six weeks.
Of those sent out to nurse, more than half die