The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-12-26
A Ready Market for Babies.

we presume, naQ considered that they
were doing "good by STEALTH and
now no doubt g blush to find It fame. >
This establishment is situated in Great
C0ram Street, and is managed by Mrs
Main, who gives 70 it not only time but
money. 1t is q refuge for infants, a
chapel of ease to the Founding Hospi-
tai, with which it appears to have kind
of connection. In fact, it discharges,
to certain extent, the functions which
the hospital itself fulfilled down to 1850.
From that period the children, instead
of being received without inquiry, were
taken in by selection, and after strict in
quiry as to the circumstances and pre-
viOus career of the mother. Such is the
system maintained to this day but Mrs.
Mains Refuge for Infants seems to
adopt the older plan. Children are re-
ceived there few days after birth, and
| thus the shame of the mother may be
concealed in private lodgings, and her
responsibility for the child entirely re-
moved few days afterward. We have
no reason whatever to doubt the charity
or good intentions of this lady, but the
functions she has taken upon herself con-
Germ the public as a whole. The mode
in which the place is managed may be
judged by the answer given by Mrs.
Palmer, the matron, and by Mrs. Main
herself Mrs. Palmer, speaking of the
baby afterward adopted by Lady Gooch,
said: "The child was brought to the
house for the purpose of being handed
over to somebody else, | can not say
any thing about tit was q private
case" " Children are taken in if APP
proved Of" Somebody brought this
child. l do not know who--it was not
its mother" Counsel asked: "Then
you say child was brought in and
passed through the house ON certain
day, and you can not say any thing
more about itP" 81 can not" was the
reply. In answer to further questions,
she declared that she did not know the
mother, and could not state where the
child was now. "It was given away"
she added, "to nurse whose name |
do not know" Mrs. Mains own evil
dence agreed with that of the resident
matron. She declined to give the name
of the mother, saying, 81 am not bound,
in my position, to tell any thing" 1t
would thus seem that, in addition to the
Founding Hospital, and managed with
much more secrecy, is this confidential
refuge for illegitimate children.
The most Objectionable characteristic
of Mrs. Mains establishment, however,
remains to be recognized. 1t is not
really, as it calls itself, a ''refuge' for
infants; but is, in its way, kind of ex-
change and mart for children, only that
the people who come as customers pay
nothing for the infants they take away.
Mrs. Mains transactions, indeed, ap-
pear to have been really of the most
loosely liberal kind. Her manager,
Mrs. Palmer, admits that she did not
know any thing about Lady Gooch's
name, saying SIT was not my business
to inquire Nothing could awaken
Mrs. Palmer's suspicion; though Lady
Gooch first said the child was for a
friend, and afterward for herself, still it
was charitably supposed that all was
right. This unsuspecting matron even
knew of cases where ladies, wanting to
adopt children, ''came and said moth
ing; their friends talked for them;"
but these curiously silent applicants for
babies excited in the guileless mind of
the good woman no idea of any thing
wrong. Mrs. Main is equally I'M
suspicious, and when Lady Gooch
came, giving her name as Mrs. Gooch,
Mrs. Main made no inquiry as to the
position of her visitors husband or pri-
vate residence, but accepted the Gros-
venor Hotel as sufficient address. She
asked for no reference, took no receipt
for the child, and made no register of
its disposal or destination. Now, this
carelessness-thi absolute ignorance as
to the future of the children-is obiee-
tionable in a double sense. Mrs. Main
takes in infants, but does not keep them.
Her institution is not properly home or
a refuge, but kind of turnstiIe through
which children are passed. On the one
side are unmarried mothers secretly
confined getting rid of their newborn
babes with great speed; while on the
other are unknown women who take
away the children beyond all knowl-
edge, inspection or control; and Mrs
Main is the intermediary in the tIansac-
ton that begins and ends in the dark.
Itmay be said that all is right, because
it suits the real mother who is willing
to desert, and the new mother who is
willing to adopt; but there is a third
party commemorative child. How can
Mrs. Main know what may happen af-
terward? There are cases, we know,
where men and women desire to have
parental control over children of both
sexes, finding them useful in some de-
grading or dishonest occupation. Chill
dren have been treated shemefully
by their own parents; they
have been brought up to
vile habits or fearfully over
worked; and how did Mrs. Main insure
against such results at the hands of per-
sons not even bound to the child by ties
of bloodP She practically takes from
the Poor Law Guardians responsibility
belonging to them, and then gets rid of
it with light heart. What would be
thought of work-house officials who gave
their orphans away to unknown appli-
cants, asking no reference and no adj
dress? The reason for this systematic
recklessness is plain enough; for if Mrs.
Main were more particular she would
receive fewer applications for children
to adopt, and by asking no questions she
gets her babies more quickly off her
hands. Yet in doing so she not only
exposes the children to unknown perils,
but facilitates, and in some cases may
even unintentionally suggest, fraud.
Lady Goocb, baffied by honesty in all
other directions, found in the Coram
Street refuge two essential implements
of her.intended deception newborn
baby and complacent nurse. Is this
system that ought to be maintainedP-
London Telegraph.
A Darky Sen of Thunder.