The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-09-01

BABY-FARM1NG IN NEW YORK CITY
WHERE, WHEN, AND HOW TO OBTAIN
A BABT-CHRIsTIAN FAMILIES SUP
Piled WITH BLUE-EYED BABIES on
DEMAND.
Now York Correspondence Of the Philadelphia
Telegraph
The Philadelphia readers Of the New
York daily newspapers will probably at
one time or other have had their attention
attracted to q certain quarter of the journal
wherein parties wishing to adopt beautiful
blue-cyed babies could be accommodated
upon reasonable terms. Sometimes it is
added that the adopting party must be
protesting Christian; but more often the
advertiser casts aside oil considerations Of
faith and practice, and confines herself to
statements in regard to the reasonableness
of terms.
The bluc-eyed baby business is carried on
to greater extent in New York than in
any other city upon the American conti-
nent. The number of blueeycd babies that
come to the surface in the columns of the
daily and weekly press is immense. Baby
farming is regularly recognized business
in itself, and those harpies who engage in
the profession are most successful who part
with the greatest number Of babies for n
consideration.
There are several of these babyfarmcrs
in New York. One of them is in st. Marks
place, where a female physician, in con-
Junction with q male one, undertakes to
supply Christian families with as many
bluc-eycd babies as may be desired. She
never makes any charge, but it is tacitlvy
understood that babies of various degrees
of blue-eycd beauty arcto be procured from
hcr at prices between $50 and $3.50. The
proprictreSs has a sharp eye, n shrewd
tongue, long head, and q short manner,
and is not capable of being browbcatcn. An
other one is on Third avenue near to Stew
arts. 1t is located over shop, and pcrvadcd
with al air Of intense responsibility. Indeed,
the rcspcctabiity OF these places is
,hcir most gratifying and salutary charac-
;cristic. The servant who opens the door
may look dowdy around the hair and dirty
around the neck, but she is respectable !;
The paTlor into which you are shown may
nave ccmetcrylikc moullincss Of atmos-
pherc, suggestive Of new-madc graves, but
the pictures Oh the wall are scriptura, in
subject, and the few ornaments are uni
formally correct and respectable; the
Iady" who receives you is generally at
sired in black bombazine (as though she
were Rachel weeping for other peoples
chldren), but the responsibility Of her ap-
pearance and language is one Of the first
things that strikes you. This Third avenue
establishment is, however, more Of an Office
han anything else. The real hospital and
nursery is " further up town"
In Nineteenth street is third baby
farm, and these three are the principal ones
Of Gotham. From these issue most Of the
advertisements which dupes, blessed with
no children Of their own, and Wishing to
adopt those of others, 80 readily answer.
Scattered all over the city arc smaller ones,
where the business is less artistically
conducted, and the police dcsccnts upon
which render temporary residence there
extremely risky.
It is in holes like these that the Eobodics'
children Of New York, who somehow or
other arc "left over" and never adopted
out, 90 through protractcd courses of i'll
treatment, which finally bring them to the
crave. Whatever sorrowful chance may
house, he will have remarked with mex
pressiba compassion the old cQuntenances
Of the withrred and unhappy little chill
lrcn th4, there abound. These arc the
bluc-eycd babies that the advertisements
run about, and which the female physician
is so dpsrous of adopting out into Chris
tian family where they may experience the
comforts Of home. Wretched children of
nobody, l am sure they need it; for the
tender mercie6 Of the woman on whose
hands they are left are sure, sooner or later,
10 conduct them to the grave.
Some OF these children escape death,
however, by being sent to RandalPs Island,
whose nurseries received during the year
1868 over eleven hundred such children.
Here their condition is at least a little bet
ter than under the roof-tree Of the venal
friend who assisted their mothers lat the
rate OF S25 per week. in bringing them into
the world. They receive at least some edu-
cation. The girls are taught sewing, and
the boys get some inkling Of farming.
Thence, periodically, they are sent West,
and in few years no small proportion OF
the population Of the prairie-peopled West
will consist of the grown-up children of no
body. At the same time, the condition of the
juvenile occupants Of Randall's Island
those little illegitimate ones-is nothing to
brag of. The nurses there who take charge
of the younger children mix a great deal
of their milk of human kindness with
bad gin, and educate the innocents to love
of whiskey. The mortality among the in
FAINT population is extremely large. Last
year much more than one-half the entire
number admitted died. The various chill
dren's hospitals and other charitable insti-
tutions for children established in the city
do something toward mitigating this evil !
but all the benevolence heaped together
seems but as drop in bucket. 1t Is one
of the great shames Of New York that there
are such extensive facilities for the "put-
ting away" OF nobody's children, and one
of the first steps toward reform should be
the abolishment of all such advertisements
as the blue-eyed baby ones. ALI BABA.
When the Able Moigno undertook to in
! ,r{n n lrst