Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-10-20
Systematic ChiId Murder in
wv l..-L III 49,. ..l.n .L- :. nl-l.. nn MI

ul The Paris correspondent of the London
Star tells this horrible story: ~ f'S'''ls
m A subject Of deep interest is now dis.
cussed at the French Academy Of Medicine,
to which have ali eady alluded-natncly,
the frightfil mortality among French
children, according to the fashion of this
country put out to nurse. Every year
twenty thousand babies are sent out Of
Paris under the care of peasant nurses, and
of that number five thousand on an aver
age are returned to their mothers the 9TH
er fifteen thousand having died of cold,
starvation and bad treatment. Since, 1916
it has been calculated That in the neigh
borhood OF Paris alone three hundred
thousand OF the nurslings have died in the
hands of their foster mothers. Why
should such barbarous murder be allowed
to depopulate the country? IL Is entirely
owing TO the bad management OF the ba-
reIuD de nOlurtceS, over which Government
has not,till now exercised proper amount
of surveillance. These offices receive in
Discriminatory every woman who applies at
them for employment.
A frightful trade is carried on by specu-
lators of the lowest class, denomiDated
aeneus, who enroll the cOuntTywomen in
their pay, convey them to Paris in carts
justly called "purgatories," obtain for
them babies whose mothers have applied
at the offices tor a nurse for their child,
and convey them and the children back to
the country. The horrors that take place
during the journey to Paris and back in
the cart of the meRe,T are OF SO startling a
nature that one could hardly believe them
to be true were it not for the undoubted
proofs which have been laid before the
Academy of Medicine. Thus the country
wOmenT make no scruple in exchanging
the babies entrusted to them, and several
among them undertake to nurse two or
three children at a time. II have SEEM"
exclaimed NJ. Chevalier, addressing the
B Academy, zone woman protesting to nurse
seven infants, and yet she herself had
neither milk nor II cow"
Fed with bad broth, exposed to every
species of dirt and neglect, the miserable
infaIit sickens and dies. The nurse, how
ever, writes to its mother that her baby is
prospering, that it had grown out of its
clothes, and required fresh supply. The
mother naturally spends her months wages
in supplying her child's wants. and goes on
paying its board for months after it has
been lying in the village cemetery. A con-
siderable number of nurses come annually
to Paris and carry back q supply of chill
dren, and not one has ever been known to
bring child back to the capital. In their
charge the children simply appear aud dis
appear. DR.. BrOchard cited in his speech
to the Academy two communes of the Elre
ct Loire Department, where the nurslings
invariably die. ..
1t appears there are women among the
nurses whose reputation is well known,
and, hOrrescO reterens, these nurses are spe-
cially sought for by certain ill-famed
houses. Intrusting new born infant to
% ;p tn inf
Dr.BrOchard read severalcopies OF the ly ing
letters, written by nurses to the chidren's
parents, describing in pathetic language
the rosy cheeks aud increasing charms of
Nheir infants, dead weeks before tn epistle
WIS Indicted. The Doctor also gave sever
al curious details of the annual pill rrinlage
to st. Criard, in the department of la
Perche. s.. Criard, be it remarked, is the
real name of the place, and not a cafein-
bourg. On given day, late in autumn, 1t
is the custom of the country to bring every
infant in the vicinity before the painted
image of the saint, there . do him homage.
Tue said statue happens to be in chapel
at The top of steep hill, eX 'Osed to all the
winds of heaven. .,-....-.... r.....
The country itself is bleak and the eli
mate peculiarly cold atany tim" oftheyear.
Naturally, this long pilgrimage at the worst
y
height proves fatal to all the delicate in
fants who are carried in the procession, and
the amount of deaths from bronchitis which
ensue in the course of the week following
is something incredible. These horrible
facts are highly discredtableto to the mayors
of the various villages where these infants
are nurscd. Naturally, if NJ. lie Maire, in
stead of cultivating his apricOts and peaches
and gaining prizes at agricultural shows
for his fat pigs, was to look sharp after the
extraordinary number of little graves in
his village cemetery, and insist OH medical
reports as to the cause thereof being laid
before him, infant mortality would rapidly
diminish. Messieurs les Mares will prob
ably read this opinion from the pens OF
their respective projects, expressed in q
somewhat startling form, as once the French
Government takes up subject it does not
tri1e with it, and undoubtedly possesses
the rare gift Of making itself obeyed. =.