The freeman. (Fremont [Ohio]) 1849-1850, 1850-02-23
The Infants Cordial system in Manchester.

mon IN the cotton districts OF dosing infants with
narcotic medicine to keep them quiet while their
mothers at their daily work in the factories.
In my former communication, stated that the
druggists exceedingly shy of giving any nfor-
nation upon the point but it is of such great in
terest and importance, that resolved coaHe qai
cOme, to obtain body of evidence upon the subject
With this view have waited upon many medical
men, examined great many elderly factory hands,
male and femaleand called at no fewer than thirty
i've druggists shops
The information given TO me BY medical men
was general in its character, and may be summed
up in the evidence elected from Mr. John Greg
Harrison one of the factory medical inspectors and
gentleman carrying a very large practice
amongst the operative classes:-"'Fhe system of
drugging children is exceedingly common, and one
of the prevailing causes of infant mortality
Mothers and nurses both administer narcotics; the
former, however, principally with the view Of OBJ
taning undisturbed nights rest The conse-
duenccs produced an imbecilitv, caused by suffu-
sion the brain, and an extensive train nf messpn-
tcric and elandular diseases The child sinks in
to low torpid state, wastes away, to a skeleton
except the stomach, which swells, producing what
is called pot-belly. IF the children survive the
treatment, they are often weakly and stunted for
life. To this drugging system and to defective
nursing its certain concomtant, not to anv fatal
effect inherent in factory labor-the great infant
mortality in the cotton towns is 10 be ascrbcd"
DIR. Harrison remarks that the practice of procur-
ing abortion was sadly common, particularly among
unmarried women, and among married women liy-
ing separated from their husbands. A person in
Stockport is notrous for the extent of his practice
in this way, instruments, and not drugs being the
usual means employed.
To return to the narcotic part of the subject
From evidence given me by mill hands themselves,
Il Il IL.
merely serve samples of the ordinary stories toll
me by those who were sufficiently candid to sneak
out upon the subject.
An intelligent male operativcin the Messrs Nor
riss MILL in Stafford stated that he and his wife put
out their first child to be nursed The nurse gave
the baby sleeping stuff and it died in nine weeks
The neighbors told his wife how the baby was dosed
but the nurse denied that the child had ever got
anything of the kind. They never sent child out
to be nurse again. For that one they paid 3s Cd
week, and the weeks that nurse washed for it, As
The mother had to get up at four O'Clock and car
ry to the nurses every morning; but the distance
was too far for her to suckle it at n0nn 50 the
child had no milk uu:il the nurse brought it home
at night. The nurses are often old women, who
take in washing, and sometimes they have three or
four children to take care Of The mnther can
often smell laudanum in the chds breath, when it
comes home AS for mothers themselves, thev
give the sieeping stuff principally at night, to
their rest
Another operative in the same mill gave the fol-
lowing evidence He had put out one child to
nurse and he and his 'missus' had sorely rued it
ever since. The child, girl, had never been heal
thy and strong, and the doctors told them, when
she was IA months old. that she had been dosed,
and how it would be with her. They paid IS a
week tQLhe nrrse His wife then earned SIS a
IL, A bu H. e.,
about was the average price for nursing Children
The nurses very often take iii washing and put the
ihfants to slrcr by drueging them. He had six
children, and they were all hearty except the first
A femaIe weaver, in mill in Chorlton. stated
the case of little girl who was nursed bv neioE-
Dor of hers. and who got sleeping stuff The
child seemed TO be ALWAYS asleep, and lay with its
eyes half open. It's head get terribly big and its
finger nails blue The mother took the child from
the nurse and carried it To the doctor who said it
was poisoned. The mother went her knees
crying and said she had never given the child any
thing but it died very soon after, The witness
was married women but had never had any family.
She had often heard tell of the effect of Sleeping
stuff and how itkilIed the poor children.
Another woman. employed in the weaving room
of the same mill, had pat oct their. children to
nurse and had lost none Of them. But she had a
the regular old nurses who makes trade Of it,
She had often heard Of children getting Sleeping
stuff 1t made them that they were always dos
ing and never cared for food. They pined away
their head got big and they died. She carried her
own child every morning to the nurse rising for this
purpose a full hour before she went to the mill
because the nurse lived some way of. The nurse
did not rise at the same time, but (the motherl
put the baby into bed to her. and left it there till
evening She did not sucie it in the course of the
day because the distance was too far to 60. All
her children were thriving.
now come to the druggist With one or two
honorable exceptions, these individuals either point
bank denied shat the drugging system existed, or
than one of the proprietors of the noted "God
class, whilst with others, who repudiated the traffic
entirely, several of them had their windows crowd
ed with announcements of different forms of the
medicine which they were cool enough to declare
they did not sell.
Ny inquiries extended to the use oflaudanam in
different forms by people of all ages and | trans
cribe the evidence Of those druggists from whom
received any information worthy the name,
A highly respectable druggist in Stafford states as
follows: "Fhe use of laudanum as a stimulus by
male and female adults is not at all uncommon
His sales in this way are, however SMALL He dis
poses of about Il shilling's worth weekly in penny
worths Some of his customers will take tea spoon
full or tea-spoonful and half of laudanum; and
in bad times, when they have no money! they come
and beg for Dose The sale of the crude opium