New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-01-11
THESE LITTLE ONES.

| the Asian seaports The official records OF
| that capital show that for many years two
thousand children were annually tortured to
death therein. The superstition which sacri-
feed them was so vague that it is impossible
for Western methods of thought to compre-
bend it but it would appear that, through some
flmy and baseless sort of religious faith, the
| citizens imagined that to save these lives
would be to encourage sin among the
people, and hence to offend their tradi-
tionaI deity. The greater portion of these
murders took place under the eye if not by
! the direct authority Of the Governors of the
principality. Others of them were compare
lively obscure, though it seems that no special
| effort was ever made to conceal them, and
| that the fplaces of sacrifice were always
| known to the authorities. The means en-
ployed were gradual in their effect, so that
| the torture was long drawn out. They com
prised beating, laceratOn, poisoning by re-
| peated small doses of opium, exposure to con-
tagiOus diseases and neglect in subsequent
| treatment, and slow starvation. The actual
| murderers were of the more ignorant and
| brutal class, as execationers in all lands are.
| But they were sustained by the polite society
of the capital and by the Court itself,
! both of which not only refused to be aware
of any individual case of death under torture,
but visited with the utmost severity of judg-
ment any mother who should attempt to res
cue her doomed offspring. So that while the
laws of the realm declared certain penalties
for all taking of life, public sentiment in time
| became a tribunal higher than law. This con-
ditiou of things appears the more horrible to
| lr,c UarV
people built temples and shrines of immense
cost to a deity whom their sacred books de-
| clared to have once made an avatar, and, in
| his human career, to have specially enjoined
| the tenderest treatment of children. 1t is only
within ten years; however, that a wise woman
of the city, having found allies among the
priests and doctors, besought the Government
! TO put an end to the bloody annual sacrifice.
Receiving permission to save as many victims
as she could herself protect and shelter, she
had scarcely begun the attempt when she
| died The priests and doctors established
sanctuary, however, wherein most of the chill
! dren who could flee TO it were safei; and as an
| increasing public opinion now condemns the
outrage it once fOstered there is hope that
| the years of the annual massacre are num-
| bered.
Such is the record of one of the most
amazing exhibitions of human cruelty, and hui
man Indifference and human superstition that
| the world has seen. We hasten to say, how
ever that while it is strictly true as to facts,
| we find ourselves in error as to their author
| ity. 1t is not Mr.. Iylor's volume on the East,
but an official report of the managers of a
New York charitable institution, from which
we have taken this history, and this mission
| airy ground lies at our own doors.
| 1t is estimated that in the year 1870 says
this report nearly three thousand illegitimate
children were born in New-York City. OF
these at least ninety per cent died of neglect,
| ill-treatment, opium, and disease. Much the
larger proportion of these deaths took place in
the public nursery on Randall's Island. In
1865 the mortality in the public hospital
reached ninety-fve per cent of the admissions,
while up to that time no Founding Asylum
existed in NewYork. And among really benev-
client people strong objection was made to
the establishment of such refuge, on the
ground that to care for the child would be to
cOndone and encourage the crime of which it
was the pitiable fruit. In 1865, Mrs. Richmond,
supported by tho influence of certain of the
clergy and of the physicians, obtained from
the Legislature the charter of the New-York
Infant Asylum. In consequence of her death
the work of this organization has been some
what hindered; but besides much actual help
afforded, it has done much to create nobler
public opinion.
The York Infant Asylum proposes to
itself to save the mothers not less than the
children. Its managers, from long study and
observation, are convinced that vast ma
jority of these mothers ARE, at heart, virtuous
women. They are for the most part young,
Supplemented, and either without counsel
ors or under the control of relatives who in
sist that the infant shall be disposed of at
birth, that the parent may return, unsus-
pected, to her former associations. Unable to
provide for her child, the poor girl frequently
hides herself in one of the private lying-in
asylums class of houses kept by immoral
women, where it is understood that the babe
will not long survive to perplex society, and
whence the weak and unhappy mother is too
often allured to refuge more infamous still.
But whether birth take place in these dens or
in some other cheap hiding place, or in the
public hospital, the chance Of life for the
child and of reclamation for the mother is
pitifully small. Sometimes infanticide reveals
the desperate struggle of these creatures to
save some rag of reputation, or retain their
former scanty means of living. But almost
always the instinct of motherhood swallows
N, all meaner desires, and they would keep
their children and give up all BESIDES if they
could hope to maintain them.
Until recently future of almost certain
misery awaited these poor little waits. Very
rarely they were decently reared in private
fnr,ilins Often. they were handled in the