New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-05-13
nxwvopK DAILY TRIBUNE. SATURDAY. MAY ID ISL

counting for it are good. a. far AZ Shey Co.
Firstly. the crowding Of masses OF children in1o
the same apartments, and, consequently, tho
impossibility of keeping the atmosphere pure
IA their delicate lungs require; secondly, Dry
nursing. which alone, with the milk procuraDie
in the cities generally proves fatal; and, thirdly,
the want of the mothers hands. The thou
sand nameless little tendernesses and cares
which the baby-life demands can be given ny
M nurse with a platoon of infants to n0urlsh,
ne matter how devOut her purpose or unf1ag-
cling her energy. To these apparent causes
must be added the greatest of all, hereditary
faint and disease.
Death, however, is not the saddest tate
awaiting these wrctched "step-children OF
Mature" The hereditary faint touches soul
az well as body. A bastard child implies not
only vice in the past, but hints too often at
vice to come. DR.. Parry's carefully compiled
statistics give frightful emphasis to this point
While but one out of every 1900 OF tho French
people become subjects of legal punishment,
one of every 1853 foundings finds his way to
the State prisons. In view of their inheritance
of vice and disease. and their rapid mortality,
one is almost tempted to suspect the State OF
playing the part of the good King Herod Tor
its own protection. Indeed, some Engiish
economists are cOld-blooded enough to hint
that the most merciful way OF dealing with
these embryo lives of criminal promise would
be to let them slip back into the darkness
from which they had scarcely emerged.
Dr. Parry pleads for them on other than
purely benevolent grounds. The late war will
diminish immigration, and war in which Great
Britain would be q party will cut IL OIL alto
gether In view of this, and OF the rapidly
decreasing number of native births, infant life
he argues, becomes q matter OF political I'M
pOrtance. Without quite sharing with the
good Doctor in his gloomy views of future de-
population, we agree with him in urging it as
a duty of the State more than private charity
TO give TO each child born in it a fair chance
to secure full physical, meRtal, and moral de-
vclopment. We agree with him, too, in his
decision that gigantic founding hospitals VIII
never adequately relieve the need of the great
mass of abandoned children. They have been
tried in every country in Europe, and with
out a single exception have proved failures,
the mortality in them, even when under the
most skillful management proving greater
than that among children in the crowded and
most unhealthy purlieus of the large cities.
The reaction in England and France against
monster asylums of every kind has included
these, and the experiment of boarding the
infants out to be wet-nursed in the rural dis
tricts, under strict surveillance, has been tried
with the most marked success. The founding
hospital is used only rs place of reception
for them. While tho mortality among all
children in London last year was 10 per cent,
among these it only rose to 20 per cent. In
Paris tho rate was still less. Compare this
with the death rate in the hospitals here OF
O. and rs per cent, and the statement needs
no argument. Warmly rs We approve the
motive which endOws these hospitals with so
splendid munlcence, we urge upon the
donors the wisdom of taking advantage OF
experience in older countries before any more
money or human life is unnecessarily wasted.