Morning journal and courier., 1883-02-14
Infant Suicides in France.

[Paris Letter to the Editor of the London Timesl
 The article contained in the Times of the 16th inst. upon the decay of population in France deserves the attention of all who care for the future of our country well as that of France. France is certainly be- coming the play ground of children of strange percentage, and, perhaps, no city could unfold such page of children with unknown histories as Paris. If the births in France, taken en masse, present such an unfavorable proportion to the deaths, it would be interesting to know how many children of those committed to the nurses licensed by the government live to become men and women. Few would deny that there are those beneath the smiling face of Parisian society who are nothing 10th to accept the government as the great foster mother to whom infant life is confided This is not the only side of these melan- choly statistics-there is one which touches our own land. I allude to Englishwomen lawfully married to Frenchmen and foreign CTS in Great Britain, many of whom, having been brought to Paris in comparative luxu- ry, find themselves-without any previous intimation-suddenly cast adrift with their children, with no claim for compensation, or for any other explanation than that their honorable marriage in England is worthless in France. Among the recent admissions to our orphanage (the gift of the late M. Galig- nani) are two out of seven children under
 
 lady, married French Count who left them totally unprovided for. Under almost every phase of sorrow, and from every station in life, which desertion aud want could realize, have little children been received by us But while we have been doing what we could more ghastly and successful work has been going on, which threatens to eutdo our ef forts. Quoting from the official statistics re- gently published of suicides in France, it ap- pears, between the years 1876 and 1880, that 198 boys and 40 girls below fifteen years of age destroyed themselves. Of these POO were over twelve years of age; 21 between the ages of twelve and ten were ten years old $ were below nine the youngest being only seven-making 8 total of 238; or, in other words, the ghastly work of self-de- struction has in four years more than doubled ours of mercy during the past eight years. Let those who are apt to oVerrate the good which is being done reflect upon the painful contrast. One recoils at the possibility of child conceiving the thought of self destruc- tion Had it been from the flow of unre- strained passion which sometimes marks the bringing up of the only child of wealthy parents, that it's little appetite already palled with satiation-leaves nothing more to be desired and, from dread of the ennuI which it sees in the palsled powers of those the sands of whose life are but half run out, prefers the mystery of death Or is 1t that childs mind instinctively seeks the divine "a power to divide as well as control-and that the attempt to crush out the God-given instincts of prayer and worship of higher power paralyzes even 8 childis desire to live without God? Children are the hope of any nation. We long for some light to be thrown upon this. grim official list if any can be given, by which one might fathom the depth of anguish and despair which could so obllt. crate the hope and ioyousness or onlld nte at the tender age of seven to fifteen, that with in four short years 2S8 children became so palled with life's history as to seek by their own hand the mystery of death. No coun- try can afford to have page of her history stained by infant suicides.