The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-11 00:00:00

THE ALABAMA. CLAIMS.

The Manchester Examiner, referring to the Alabama
claims, says it is pretty certain that the question will
soon have to be faced. We shall have to make up our
minds as to how we shall meet it. That, indeed, will
not be difficult, because there is practically no difference
of opinion amongst us. We are ready to compen-
sate pecuniary losses by pecuniary payment, assuming
of course, that we are found by some impartial authority
to have been in the wrong ; and it is, at any rate, some-
thing in our favour that that is exactly what seems to be
desired by those who have actually suffered the injury
complained of. There is no doubt of the genuine desire
of all leading English statesmen, and of the English
public to find some simple and summary way
of ascertaining and discharging our liabilities; we welcome
with great pleasure indications that temperate and mode-
rate views are not without effective advocacy amongst the
commercial classes of America, and we cannot refuse our-
selves the pleasure of hoping that their influence will yet
countervail that of noisy demagogues or ambitious party
leaders.

THE HOME SECRETARY AND BABY
F eiRMING.

On Wednesday a body of gentlemen who have formed
themselves into an association for the protection of infant
life, waited upon Mr. Bruce at the Home Office to ascer-
tain his views with respect to future legislation for stop-
ping the practices now carried out whereby
infant life is largely sacrificed. Mr. Charley,
M.P., briefly introduced the deputation, who re-
presented a meeting held a week since, when it was
resolved to establish an association for the purpose of
obtaining an enactment to deal with the secret putting
away of infant children. It was explained to Mr. Bruce
that the views of the association could be met by the pas-
sing of a measure making the registration of births com-
pulsory, requiring the registration of all places where
nurse-children were taken for hire, the registration and
licensing of all persons who acted as midwives, and
ordering an inquest to be held upon every child which
came by its death while in the hands of a hired nurse.
Mr. Curgenven presented the Home Secretary with a
copy of the proposed bill, for which he asked the Govern-
ment support, if the Home Office did not intend to move
in the subject.—Mr. Ernest Hart informed Mr. Bruce
that the subject had been several times before the
office, once when Mr. Walpole was Home Secre-
tary ; and the Harverian Society then brought
to his notice most valuable information, and
certain documents containing this information were left in
Mr. Walpole's care, but he was afterwards unable to find
them. These documents, if they were found in the office,
would shew what was done on this subject in other
countries, especially in Belgium.—Mr. Bruce asked if any
inquiries had been directed to the moral effect of laws
upon this subject, and whether it had not been seen
that legislating upon one evil did not bring others.—Mr.
Hart replied that, on the contrary, the law had a
moral effect. The laws in Belgium, like those now
sought, were merely repressive, that was, no nurseries
were provided or any aids, but there was simply super-
vision. This deputation did not ask for any help to put
away children, but they required that every child should
be registered, and every woman who proposed to take a
child for hire should be registered and subject to super-
vision.—Mr. Bruce remarked that in his view, to make
stringent laws as to the places where children were
brought up, would cause many to be put away altogether.
—Mr. Charley said that the children put to these baby
farms were killed in the proportion of 50 to 1 killed by the
parents.—Mr. Hart added that making a direct law upon
the subject would be no more than doing what Mr.
Gathorne Hardy, when he was Home Secretary, said the
police now had power to do, namely, supervise these
farms.—Mr. Curgenven proceeded to point out what the
law in Belgium was : one part of it was that no midwife
could receive a single woman into her house without the
registration of the woman's name with the police, and by
this means, if the child were not afterwards paid for,
wherever it was sent, the police had a clue to its parents
and the commune in which it was born.—Mr. Bruce
listened to the gentlemen at some length, and then
said that the Government was inquiring into the
subject, and if an official measure were not brought in, the
association had the right to expect Government support to
bill.

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