The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-13 00:00:00

TIJE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1870.

pose.sueh troops as those of the new armies to a more
numerous enemy is merely to throw them away, If
the new levies are to fight with any chance of success,
it must be by accepting battle only when their numeri-
cal strength is such as to counterbalance their
inferior quality. The Mobiles, fourth battalions,
and the like are all that could be desired in point
of quantity; it surely ought to be no difficult
matter for a competent general to assemble
such a force as would hopelessly out-number
a single German corps. But a com-
petent general is the one want which
France seems unable to supply. The national armies
are beaten in detail, the national spirit becomes
more and more discouraged, despair is rapidly
settling on the whole population, but the man who
might turn the tide does not appear.

THERE is something really appalling in the fact
that upon the very morning of the execution of
MARGARET WATERS for systematic child-murder in
the way of Baby-Farming, two dead infants, both of
them evidently suffocated, were found in Hyde
Park, tossed aside as though they had been
merely brained puppies or drowned kittens.
Infanticide is in itself always ono of those
crimes that, in the awful language of
holy writ, cry to heaven for vengeance. It is
the world's sense of this that makes the Massacre
of the Innocents, in the whole history of the human
race, such an exceptional atrocity. It is the universal
consciousness of the utterly abnormal heinousness of
his guilt that century after century has
held forth the very name of HERon to
the world's execration and abhorrence. The
new-born child is so entirely and absolutely helpless
—more completely helpless than the young of any
other creature. Apart even from our sense of the
sanctity of human life, that helplessness of the infant
renders the deliberate taking away of its life, of
the life but just given to it by the
CREATOR, a crime of the most dastardly
and execrable guilt. Yet this is the crime per 7
petually and systematically perpetrated, all round us,
in the very midst of us, the laws of GOD and Man to
the contrary notwithstanding. A solitary example
like that of the convict WATERS no one can for an
instant expect to be effectual in the way of diminish-
ing the number of infanticides. The interposition of
the legislature is more than ever urgently required.
The wholesale slaughter of children in this Christian
land has become so portentous in its magnitude and
persistence, that we begin to look wistfully to the
arrangement of the bell and the turn-table so long
familiar as an adjunct to the arrangements of the
foundling hospitals of the Continent.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

0 IJR NATIONAL DEFENCES.

A correspondent of the Times writes at some length
to urge the organization of a body of armed men for
the National Defence, a body so large and so trained
as to render the country, humanly speaking, secure,
independently of the Regular Army and ➢iilitia.
He proposes that every man from 18 to 25 years old,
should be liable to serve in the army of defence. lie
would make certain exemptions, such as of agricul-
tural labourers and young men studying for the re-
gular army. Na substitutes should be allowed, and
if volunteering should fail, the ballot must be resorted
to. The service is to be for ten years and the body thus
raised is to number half a million men. The officers
would be to a great extent supplied by the present
volunteer force, and officers resigning their commis-
sions in the regular army might be required to serve
in the army of defence. The drill is to be managed
by the stair of the volunteers and the militia, and the
standard of efficiency must be such as will render the
force fit to take the field at a moment's notice.
Government must look to efficiency without specify-
ing the number of drills to be attended. The writer,
who has had long experience in the command of a
volunteer corps, is convinced that it is possible, with
tact and consideration, to drill men thoroughly, with-
out oppressively encroaching on their time or busi-
ness, and lie considers the system described as the
only one by which it will be possible to drill
thoroughly a vast body of men without appreciable
loss of time or money. After giving several details
as to minor arrangements, he says that the mainte-
nance of the force would be provided for by an annual
addition of a tenth of its original number, and 50,000
youths arriving at the age of 18 would suffice for the
annual recruits. The system, he thinks, would be so
easily worked, so thoroughly efficient and inexpen-
sive, that there would be no temptation to the most
economically-minded and popularity-hunting govern-
ment to interfere with it when once established.
Such an army of defence would be organised with-
out taking the men from their homes and avocations,
and the only expense it would entail would be the
necessary uniforms, weapons, and ammunition.

MORE BABY"FAR➢IING REVELATIONS.

It is scarcely possible to resist the idea that the
deaths of so many infants, whose bodies are found in
the frequented or secluded localities of London, are
connected with the atrocious system of baby-farm-
ing. On Friday the dead body of a newly-born
child was found in Hyde Park, and on Sunday a
similar discovery was made by a Guardsman, under
circumstances which could not admit of a doubt
that the babes bad been foully murdered almost
as soon as they had seen the light of day. And now
another case is revealed which has greatly increased
the sensation caused by the above-mentioned dis-
coveries. A collector of rags and bones on Tuesday
last was searching the streets in Peckham, pre-
sumably in the pursuit of his avocation, when in
looking over the wall of a chapel he espied a bundle.
Imagining that it was a parcel of rags, he secured it,
but he found on opening it that it contained
the . dead body of a child. This rag-picker, in
giving his evidence before the coroner, made
the startling statement that he had often
found dead children in going his rounds, but he had
always left them for " his mates to pick up." His
alleged reasons for this were his nervousness and his
fear that the police would suspect him of foul play. It
was stated, in reply to the coroner, that the articles in
which the infant was found—which was described as
a fully-developed one, weighing eight pounds and a
half, the legs being bent under the thighs—were
similar to those found on the bodies in Waters's
case. The coroner expressed a hope that the police
would energetically investigate the case, and the
public also hopes the same.
THE REGISTRAR GENERAL'S RETURNS.

The weekly returns of the Registrar-General serve
among other useful ends to remind the social
reformer of the many claims upon his attention. In
the return just issued we find indications of soma
crying evils whose influence upon the public health
is certain to make itself felt. Thus many of the 27
deaths which occurred in the metropolis from small-
pox were unquestionably due to the prevalent
neglect of vaccination among the lower
classes. The large mortality from fever of
all kinds is directly traceable to the unwholesome
condition of their dwellings. Scarlet fever, which
has long been disastrously prevalent, so far from
diminishing, goes on increasing in fatality. Last week
in London there were 192 deaths registered from this
cause, being the highest number thus attained since
last December. In some parts of the metropolis,
says the Registrar, the disease appears to have settled
down like a dark cloud, and he mentions that in the
Battersea sub-district of Wandsworth there were 53
deaths out of 113 registered from all causes in the
last four weeks, which were attributable to
this complaint. But the disease by no means
restricts itself to London. Out of 106 deaths in
Bristol, 33 were caused by scarlet fever. In Sheffield

there were 12 deaths from the same cause, while '
kindred diseases were busily at work in other of our
large towns. Seventeen persons died from fever in
Manchester, and 18 in Sheffield; while Liverpool,.
famous for its crowded and insalubrious conditions,
returned no less than 37 fatal fever cases, eight being
from typhus and 2J from relapsing fever. It is omi-
nous that this latter disease, the fruit of want and
destitution, should have already assumed such a
formidable aspect in any English town. .With two
dangerous forms of fever prevalent amongst us, it is
time we investigated our sanitary arrangements, and
gave. a little closer heed to the social condition of our
poor.