The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-15 00:00:00

RUSSIAN INFANT MORTALITY.

A report, which shews the effect of exces-
sive female labour on the mortality of infants—
at all events in Russia—gives some interesting,
though at the same time very painful, facts. Mr.
Michell, one of Her Majesty's representatives, who
has furnished the report, speaks more especially
of the province of Novgorod, though, he
says, the figures would apply to Northern, Central,
and Eastern Russia. His statement is that 36 per
cent. of the infants born do not survive. The pro-
portion of deaths rises in the winter till April, when
61 per cent. die. In July it reached the enormous
figure of 75 per cent., and in August no fewer than
76 per cent. of the children barn die. Mr. Michell
in endeavouring to account in some way for
this mortality, says that in the two latter
months the mothers go out to work in the fields,
and they leave the infants to the care of children or
women too old for work. The mothers are miser-
ably fed, work as much as the men, keep more fasts,
and it is only an exceptional circumstance to find a
woman capable of rearing her child by an entirely
natural process. Very few of these children
are fed by anything but a kind of
bottle, which does not always contain milk ;
but frequently curds and water and a kind of
gruel mixed with water. Another reason assigned
for the excessive mortality is the fact that the
mothers are seldom attended by midwives, and that
the confinement takes place in a hut, in the field, or
other places eminently unfitted for it. In three
days the mother generally resumes her hard field
work, and the prevailing, idea is, that it is
wrongil
it t give —usave
eraalslhtihrte—se
attainsthteheageohioldf seven years.
adverse circumstances, who can wonder that the mor-
tality among Russian infants is so high ?

. .
Teasdale Wilson, the once famous North-Coast
rower, has died at Newcastle.

o the world is round after all. The fact has
beet demonstrated at last even to the satisfaction of
" Parallax." Mr. Hampden laid £5OO that Mr. Wallace
could not prove that three discs three miles apart and
each at the same height above the water, a continuous'
piece of the Bedford Level, would not be in a straight;
line. The experiment was tried, and the referees awarded
that Mr. Hampden should pay £5OO to Mr. Wallace.
Petitions to Parliament are being got up in favour
of the medical education of women. It is desired to
obtain expression from women of their wish that facilities
should be offered for the study of medicine by women, iti
being asserted that they 7, in general have no sympathy
with this movement. Women have never been excluded;
from the universities of Italy and Germany, and latelythose of Paris, Vienna, and Zurich, as well as medical
schoolsthem Sweden and in Russia, have been thrown open
to ,

The Suez Canal Company, by advertisement in a,
newspaper of Paris, makes known that in March the re-
ceipts were 620,738 f., nearly double those of February;
and that the total from the opening in November to the
end of March was 1,529,338 f. Also that in November
one vessel passed through, in December nine, in January
sixteen, in February twenty-nine, and March fifty-three.
It add that, from the Ist to the Bth of April, twenty-two
passed.
-

The Lancet Sanitary Commission reports in
reference to Marlborough College that the nnmber of boys
resident in the college must be reduced by at least seventy
or eighty ; that the ventilation should be everywhere im-
proved ; and that more artificial warmth should be sup-
plied. With respect to the first it believes that two years
ago, the Council took steps to increase the accommoda-
tion, but that they have been deterred by difficulties as to
the tenure of the land. These are now over, and the
Commission hopes to hear that additional masters' houses
will very soon b 9. kuilt

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