St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-07-14
UNWELC0ME BABIES,
And How They Are Got Out Of
the Way in Frigid
Russia.
A "Little Angel Factory"
About Which Awful Stories
Are Told.
Where the Little Ones Are
Starved to Death and
Cut in Pieces.
A Woman Caught Killing Her
Child Found Innocent
by a Jury.

Wy q 0uEys
At the examination of the woman
Skooblinsky, lately arrested at Warsaw.
details were brought out which reveal
to what horrible extent baby farming
is carried on in Russia. The details in-
duce one to believe that in the matter
of surreptitiously disposing of infants
Russia is not very much better than
China, where the Herodian custom is
supposed to flourish best-Or worst.
1t is said that Count Tolstoi, learning
of these horrible practices, was inspired
to write his "Kreutzer Sonata," in
which he hurled this piece OF scorn at
the present civilization:
''What terrible unveracity passes cur
rent nowadays respecting children!
Children. forsooth, are blessing from
God. Children are joy. Now all this
is lie. This was so in times gone by;
but it is not true In our days; nothing
like it is true. Children are felt to be
scourge. This they are, and nothing
more"
The widest excitement prevailed in
some parts of Russia on the publication
of the woman's testimony, and the most
serious of the papers called such homes
as hers ''angel factories" Her method
was like that of all of her class. A
common Servant-wOman gives herself
out for a licensed midwife, opens what
she grandiloqueutly terms an es-
tablishment for the bringing up of chill
dren in Warsaw, but which is, in plain
truth, a filthy hut on the outskirts OF
the. city, in which they are gradually
without more ado. To the tender mer-
cies of this monster mothers unhesi-
tatingly confide their babies. paying
her in advance for her trouble. In a
short time her name and fame spread
far and wide, and her clientele grows
more numerous and more varied. in
Guiding individuals or families placed
by birth or fortune far out of the reach
of want. Unable to attend alone to the
various departments of this lucrative
occupation, she has recourse to the
principle of the division of labor, hiring
a sharp, cynical woman of loose char
acter to furnish the establishment with
''raw material"
Besides these colleagues. ShooblinSky
gave fees to her son-ln-law to forge
doctors' certificates Of death from
natural causes; contracted with car
penter to receive the little corpses and
keep them till sufficient number ac-
cumulated to make it worth while to
bury them, when it became his duty to
assist her in chopping them up into lit
tie bits and packing them neatly into a
were then buried by a half idiot boy
~, - I;,,oJ with S-Of,t,tincEv
In Russia one can do nothing. good or
bad. without a special authorization
from the paternal authorities, and from
this universal rule baby farming Is not
excepted. Hence the police, having re-
ceived an inkling of what was going on,
and knowing that SkoOblinsky had been
tried some twelve months previously
for infantieide and acquitted for lack of
Sufficient evidence. paid her visit one
day and found her nursing" four child
rem. whom they ordered her to return
TO their parents, seeing that she had no
license to carry on the business of baby
farmer. To this she assented, but in
stead of sending them back to their
mothers she dispatched them
The next day all the four children left
for a better world, and that night the
boy heard her call out to her son-in-law:
81 say, Koonya, take away those pup
pies; they're dead" They had been
Systematically starved to death.
method of disposing of them which set
her right in the eyes OF the law, ana en-
abled her to say to the procurator: Il
did not kill them. They died, poor
things, because they were very weak.
NV calling was an honest One."
The fathers and mothers who in
trusted their children to this woman
will never be discovered, for SkOO-
blinsky made it point never to inquire
whence they came, what position they
Oee,Ipied. or even their names. In
ordinary times $40 was the charge,
but whenever business grew brlsk'
it was raised to a much higher sum,
and lowered to $3.50 when it was I'M
usually slack. Maybe the baby loses
little in diving, for an ilIegitimate child
in Russia is generally subjected for the
term of natural life TO cruel treatment.
1t is stripped of certain OF its civil rights
and is scoffed and sneered at with i'm
pupity in season and out of season. and
made the butt of every coarse Jester
that comes along.
He bears about in his passport, like
Cain on his forehead, the indelible
mark that brands him as fugitive and
a vagabond. The following case. taken
from the Law Journal OF st. Petersburg,
is type:
The victim was the illegitimat daugh-
ter of a Russian nobIeman. idolized by
her father. who gave her a fine educa
ton. This nobleman's death put all end
to the education when the daughter was
lust turned sixteen. She was full of
life and energy. shrauk from no kind of
labor. and resolved to win her way up
ward by her own unaided efforts. The
reception she met with, however, On her
first application for employment proved
a wet blanket to her ardor.
ssHave you legal paSSpOrtg' she was
asked. mo, am an illegitimate child;
but it's not the passport that will do the
work, but myself, and [ am here"
eyes, no doubt; but that is not enough.
A Russian without passport is like the
sea without wafer. There is no thor
oughfare for the likes of you. GOod-by."
BewiIdered,s she ran hitherand thither,
endeavoring to obtain passport, but IN
vain. Some officials promised, others
shook her rudeIy off, and others threat
ened her with imprisonmentandS Siberia
for yagrancy. Still. however, she shifted
as well as she could under the circum-
stances, making head against all diff.
fieulties and just keeping body and soul
together.
At last young man. full of admira-
ton for her noble qualities, asked for
her heart and her hand. The harbor of
rest was in sight. So it seemed at first,
but in reality this proved to be only
respite. 'sWhere is your passport? You
have none? Marriage is impossible
without one. No priest can perform the
ceremony for YOU"
Tears. signs and earnest entreaties
purchased pity and promise, but no
remedy.
Her union with her bridegroom was
cemented by love but not hallowed by
religion, the legislator forbidding the
priest to pronounce benediction. This
was bad, but not the worst. A very
demon seemed to preside over her des-
tiny, for soon after the birth of her first
ahiId hax holnnaa diad and cha xuac