The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-06 00:00:00

FOUNDLING, HOSPITALS AND
THEIR EFFECTS. „•:

The Report of the Charity Commissioners on the
Foundling Hospital in London (the only institution of
the kind, we believe, in the kingdom), affords several
facts of considerable interest in evidence of the suffi-
ciency of the grounds upon which only a limited degree
of assistance is afforded to charities of this class.

The Foundling Hospital, possessing at present an in-
come of about:ls,ooo/. a year, and in which by the falling
in of leases a very large increase may soon be antici-
pated, was founded in 1739, by a charter granted on
the petition of Thomas Coram, the master of a trading
vessel, who had for some years previously exerted him-
self strenuously to attain this object.
There are some startling facts in the Report, which
seem to prove beyond a doubt that the most effectual
means of augmenting the number of foundlings, is a
liberal supply of means for their maintenance in nu-
merous or extensive foundling hospitals. This, it is
well known, is the common argument against such
establishments ; and it is usually illustrated by the
fact of the far greater number of foundlings and ille-
gitimate children in Paris than in London. This ex-
ample, however, is not unexceptionable ; for it remains
yet to be shown, how far the numbers in the former city
would be reduced if the indiscriminate reception of
children in the charities were to cease, or if certain
bounds were put to it. The history of our own Found-
ling Hospital affords much clearer evidence. The hos-
pital was opened on the 25th of March, 1741, notice
having been previously given to the public that children
would be admitted till the house (then situated in
Hatton-garden) was full. The children were merely
brought to the door, and if, on examination, they were
found free from any communicable disease, they were
admitted, without any questions whatever being asked
respecting them. Under this plan, the numbers asking
for admission appear gradually to have increased ; and,
in 1742-3, it was proposed to enlarge the hospital, and
obtain funds enough to admit all the children that were
brought. At this time it often happened that there
were 100 women with children at the door, when only
twenty could be admitted ; and riots and disturbances
often took place. A practice was then introduced of
receiving by ballot ; and all the women were admitted
into the Court-room, and drew balls out of a bag.
wlnv
firstola not commenced
sile'
clioiemni
it entailed
meian of i
continued
6,
tellsntacaieli
cieddft ofi indiscriminate ds
nr
n7ttcliesr
purpose
saiarly flporteepiunt
oar
sltadmission,e ,hyaeetnaiotiri e
sotwui;l hseei
calohniofdle
hospital.
vwti Commonsve
thher s,
ocla
,no/ilt
s t
some
others less important, was defrayed by the House of
Commons, amounted to little short of 550,0001.
A basket was hung at the gate of the hospital, in
which the children were deposited, after ringing a bell
to give notice to the officers in attendance. On the 2d
of June, 1756, the first day of general reception, 117
children were received ; and, between that day and the
end of that year, 1,783 children, and in the following.
year, 3,727 were admitted. The governors directed, in')
.1.1...m,:1757, that advertisements should be issued, ap-
prising the public of the privilege to which they had be-
come entitled ; and notices to the same effect were put
up at the corners of public streets, and places of public
resort.
report)
T he
werer consequencesindped of
lamentable.hi s general
admission
P! ostcut Prostitution (says
twashe
greatly encouraged by the unlimited facilities afforded
for disposing of the fruits of illicit intercourse. The
governors Caving neglected to provide themselves pre-
viously with proper means of rearing so many children
during the most critical period of human life, by far the
greater number of the infants admitted died. Of
14,934 children received during the three years and tea
months that this system was continued, no less than
10,389 perished in early infancy. Parish officers, in
some cases by fraud, in others by force, sent in the
legitimate children of pauper parishioners, to relieve
their parishes from the cost of maintaining them.
Parents also brought their children when in a dying
state, for the purpose of ieriing them buried at the ex-
pense of the hospital ; strangers were employed by
parents to convey their children from the country to
the hospital in London at so much per head, and many
of them, through the wilful brutality or criminal negli-
gence of those to whom they were consigned, never
reached their destination alive.
This system was discontinued in 1760, but its short
continuance was amply sufficient to show, in the above
brief history, all its evils, and all those of the same plan,
however modified in its details, in other countries.
With increased facility, there immediately coincides
increased licentiousness, and the strange anomaly is
exhibited of charity engendering crime. The harm of
such a system is incalculable, for as it effectually re-
moves one of the principal restraints on the production
of bastard children—the fear of the burden of main-
taining them—it creates a demand for assistance which
none but the most enormous funds can possibly meet.

NEAT CALCULAT
St. Louis Ga-
zette
goes into a calculation to show the amount of tobacco a
man chews in a lifetime. The Editor says--" Suppose a to-
bacco chewer is in the habit of chewing tobacco fifty years of
his life--each day of that time he consumes two inches of solid
plug, which amountsto sia thousand three hundred and seventy-
five feet, making nearly one mile and a quarter in length of
solid tobacco, a half inch thick and two inches broad." He
wants to know what a young beginner would think if he had
the whole amount stretched out before him, and he were told
that to chew it up would be one of the exercises of his life,
ant) .lan lhaf it Would ,tax income to the amount of one
thousand ana ninety-five dollars. We guess he would think it
a pretty considerable job.- .Istio • York Evening Post.
DOVER, JUNE 4.—The Earl of Durham, who
has proceeded thus far en route to Carlsbad, finds himself tco
unwell to undertake the journey, and intends, we hear, to
Hry sunneer
.reli,lerice. 'I he air cf the Isle of
-estored his health, and we hope lie
. _