The Express.
London, England, 1865-09-08 00:00:00

Tot!o4

Wan Ude tided, theQUALITY, WEIGHT, end VALUE d
ehe gold are actually defined, and guaranteed to the purchaser
John Broaden looking for a rah. neenneration on Cie wortmaiship
only. which it to t►e intricacy cc simpllcity ot
all pattern. —JeralltrilrEir, Goldsmith.—Manufactory, 16,
Hendettontreek Coveutgarden, London. Y.dabliehed a.u. 1796.
N.B. Ma edablialunout la closed at 6 to the evening, and no
ddindsys at 1 o'clock.

LONDON must have a ONNTLZMAN'S
SUPPER and MUSIC ROW= EVANS," after ARM
YAW. Cowart ,

The erpreo.

HAYMARKET.
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TER MEE:RANT Of VENICE. Mr. W. moo
—sad 11SM. Mews. Robins and Seem: 1116•811Crand,
lwrisoik Caveadlas. Pao" sad Mn. lialisood.

rsanzsirs.
ITIFIIIII. RIAILTSIVINGS AND vroDusanurrea.
-♦RRAR NA POGUIL Marc D. Donelmah. J.
Vaiadreoll, D. 11150nr, Yam,. Series, Owtsinirtat,
,loneleault. sad Mho IL Oilver...-And Al' AMPLI ♦POLOGY.

ITETANNIA.
nos Evrrinto, THE EIDE TO TOM Mr. T. Drill Woad:
Ric Ken Troupe. - LOY'S% DIIHAHL lin. H. Yamsid,.
Aid T 111; CONFNUARATZ'S DAUGIITILIL Wu 8. lires.

HIGH WATIL AT LOWDON-BIUDGX.
TM= DAT —11 Iambs. Ilk 17m.....Attent000. St. 67m.
T4-mostow Womb& Ad 14m.....Abernoon. mt. Wm.

LONDON. FRIDAY. SICPTSMBER 8.

Ous readers will have °Wirral with satisfaction
that a public nesting has lees bald, as a Mat stop
towards some combined action in regard to cheek-
_

ing the practice of infanticide in England. The
honest and earnest disclosures of the speakers are
full of interest and instruction ; and it is already

clear that whatever cenclusion experience may

bring them to as to what can be done, by a Na-
tional Association or otherwise, to mitigate the

calamity, they hays already gathered some wisdom

from their study of the subject.
The avowed aim of the movers is to " take im-
" mediate steps to arrest the progress of
" the ;" and Dr. CLARKE, Recorder of Ran.

goon, acknowledges the receipt of above atbouaand
letters from ladies and gentlemen, containing many
valuable suggestions. We must hope that at the
next meeting some of these suggestions will be
brought forward, that the'r practical value may be
tried by discussion, for every word of wisdom that
can be gathered up is bur too maoh needed. More-
over, it is of importance that every proposal that
cannot be sustained should be discredited and put
aside, in order that no time or strength should be

wasted in the pursuit of an impracticable object.
Already we find that the prevalent idea enter-

tamed by the benevolent agitators themselves, and
by certain coroners and others who ought to be
better informed of the history of the crime—o:
establishing means of secret deposit for infants—is
seen in its true light by a very brief study of the
case. Dr. CLARKS declared, on Monday 'MAU&
that he finds himself obliged to give up

the plan he had advocated--of the ievolvieg

bozo; need at the French and other

now in

continental foundling hospitals. He is now
satisfied that such • method " tends to
" increase immorality." It is much to be

wished that he had added that it directly operates
to the increase of child murder. Eie does speak of

the expense u being greater than it would be
possible to incur. From this two things neces-
sarily follow—an increase of immorality up to the
extreme limit of the possible expenditure ; and

then, an increase of cl;ild.murder-proportioned to

the encouragement given to the Vice. The fact
has always been so. The care of the infants has
always been cast upon the public till its hands
were fall; and then, under the disappointment of
the expectations excited, more children have been
put out of the way than before the relief was
offered at all. Dr. CLARKE might have spoken of
not only the inevitable increase of the vice, but
the certain increase of the crime. It is well,
however, that the idea of setting up turnicg-boxes,
or the baskets which caused such infinite mischief
at the L mdon Foundling Hospital, is given nix
The ground is so far clear for a better procedure.
We may even hope that the plain inference is already
drawn, that any mode of action which relieves the
sinners from the consequences of their sin, and
even offers advantages to the offspring, is as direct
an encouragement to immorality as the Turning-
box System. And again, that all aid given to the
parents of illegitimate children is so much dis-
couragement to poor married parents struggling
under their domestic burdens, and so much temp-
tation to them to throw off their cares and duties
also upon society.
This brings us to the most striking aspect
of the meeting of last Monday. It seems front
the report that, with all their earnestness and
all their benevolence, the movers are as yet
contemplating only one, and that by no means the
moat important province of the ease. One wonders
whether it was so with the gentlemen and ladies
who composed the audience. One wonders whe-

ther it was so with the writers of the thousand
letters received last week. As far as appears,
everybody was thinking only of unmarried
raothers, on occasion of having their first child.
An inexperienced observer might suppose that all
the child murder in England is done by or on be-
half of newly-seduced girls, in an agony of shame
and dread of want. There is solid evidence under
one bands that, if this were all, the infanticide in
England would be less than in any society yet
known. We cannot at this moment go into the
large subject of the amount of illegitimate births
in this country ; but it is proved to be smaller in
proportion to the population than In almost every
other in Christendom. It may be natural, but it
is not wise, that our feelings of pity for the fallen
woman should lead us to think of her infant only
—forgetting thu greater and commoner danger of
the infant of the over-worked, half-starved, lamely-
tempted married mother. In Foundling Hospitals
a very large proportion of the children brought in
are well known to be the offspring of married
parents. Not a few were deposited at the London
establishment, by night, by parish officials ;
but many more by married couples who bad
as many on their hands already as they could pro-
vide for. We need but recall some of the dis-
closures of our law and police courts for the last
twenty years to see how little can be done by any
association which confines its regards, consciously
or unconsciously, to the cue of illegitimate chil-
dren and their mothers. There is the abase of
Burial Clubs, so fearfully revealed a dozen years
ago, and impressed on us by the trial and execu-
tion of parents in more than one county in Eng-
land ; criminals only too truly regarded as speci-
mens of an order grown np under the shadow of
an evil principle—that of insuring the death, and
not the life of children. There are the poisonings,
whole nests of which are discovered from time la
time--sometimes in our less prosperous towns,
but oftener iu the rudest country districts, where
the depressed rural clan seem to be only half alive
in body and mind, and susceptible of animal and
devilish propensities and notions accordingly. Now

in the instal

scarcely pet
the judge _ _ _ _
oases of the murder of eight infants in successionby
the mother putting arsenic on her breasts, or of
three or four at due intervals by vermin poison.
There are WINSORB in many parte of England who
will do the job for cottage mothers as well as for
perplexed maid servants. Then there is the fearfully
common case of the overdriven wife, who has
balmy her only the alternative' of sacrificing her
infant's life or her own, which will involve that of
the elder children. As soon as she is up from her
confinement ahe must go out and work to get food
for the elder children. She leaves her infant in
hands in which it is sure to die—to die of im-
proper food, drugs, and neglect. The mother
knows it will die, and is relieved when it is gone ;
and she has no pain of conscience, because she
could do no otherwise than commit this child murder.
Her husband will not, or does not, support the
elder children—she cannot even complain to the
magistrates of his not doing it ; the workhouse is
not open to them while their father lives at home.
• She has to choose between them and the baby ;
and the baby naturally undergoes the doom.
Then, again, since the income of the Nightingale
Fund has been in part applied to the training of
an order of respectable and well-qualified mid-
wives, we have arrived at a good deal of know-
ledge of the things that are done under the hands
of the wretches whom they are to supplant. Mid-
wives, as well as half-barbarous parents, are posi-
tive that infanta "are better off with the Loma,"
and are quite easy about sparing them the pains
of a hard and troublesome life. We need not go
on. Here are facts enough to nerve the proposers
of the new Amoeiation as suggestions that the in-
quiry they have entered upon is of vast scope ;
and that their aim—the erred of the practice of
infanticide—involves a change of some of the main
conditions of one social state. If they dream of
confining their good offioes to the case of young
women under their first lapse, they will either do
mischief or find themselves involved in a work
the seeps of which is far beyond any-
thing they now imagine. They will h►ve to
give up or go on. If they take timely
heed to their steps, they need not give up, for
there is a great deal to be done in the departments
of law, economy, morels, and manners. But if
they go on, they must be prepared to find a wider
field opening before them incessantly, and new
embarrassments entangling their way, till they
discover that to attack this crime is to measure
themselves against the mightiest difficulties impli-
, °mad with the civilization of our time.

Oaly let their view be broad enough, and they
may do some great and good things. Only let
them see that a pitying sentiment towards the
shamed and perplexed sinner does not deaden
their hearts to the fate of the rest of society, and
they may avoid doing harm, and perhaps intercept
some evil. Only let them inquire and learn, re-
flect and oonsult, before they plunge into action,
Nod they may carry some of their own aims, and
originate reforms and improvements transcending
their own proposals. They will win the world over
to them if they can be as teachable by experience,
as steady and as patient as they unquestionably
are benevolent.

The managers were certainly wise to refrain from
passing any ficeolutions at the meeting on Monday
night. On the next °amnion, the 4th of October,
we shall hear the results of their inquiries and con-
sultations in the interraL

:t

11". •
(azorralfilLionsits.)
SPAIN.
MADRID, Sm.. 7, EVININII
The Queen gave mildews to-day to the Italian
ambassador and the Duke d'Acostm
Prince Amadeus, of Savoy, dined this evening
with their Majesties.

`4'B Mr ; P SS, FRIDA?
•
Bern emu on th coast,' 4 Eat INVELLIGENCE
uookis
••
-
enetrala, °ea' ups ep t (azoixaliOlusame.)
on the bench, and perplex the jury—
SPAIN.