The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-01

parts OF South America, leaving my readers
10 approve or condemn, according to their
individual convictions. Certainly Catholic
Peru IS in advance of most Protestant
countries IN having almost entirely eradi-
cated the crime OF destroying infants be-
lore thelr olrth, by rendering it possible
Tor unWedded mothers to dispose of the
proofs of their shame, without committing
murder and possibly suicide In communi-
Ties which are perhaps more civilized, the
impression appears to prevail that if pro-
vision were made for the fiotsam and let
sam thus cast upon the sea of human wick
edness, it would be an announcement to
VEGAS II the young women of the land
would flock to avail themselves of the priv
ilegel
In due time we obtained permission to
VISIT THIS UNIQUE ASYLUM,
which, like all other benevolent institutions
of South America, is conducted under the
direct auspices of the church of Rome.
However Christians of diverse sects who
are travelling the many routes to heaven.
may differ on dogmas and doctrinal points,
all not blinded by bigotry must yield the
palm for unseltish living and tireless prac-
tlce OF charity, the greatest of Christian
virtues, to the uncounted army of Catholic
devotees, male and female, who have given
their lives to the care of the sick, the indi-
gent, the helpless, and the so called
'heathen." No spot on the earth's surface
is too black or forbidding, no human beings
too degraded, and no depth of crime or
misery too dark to be penetrated by the
mlnistrations of learned monks and gentle
sisters of charity-not merely by the easy
method of sending Bibles, tracts and the
contributions of other people, but by going
to live among the objects of religious so
hcltude and devoting toilsome years to bet
tering their condition.
LED BY THE MATRoN
we went first to inspect the mysterious
hole in the wall. Close to its inner open
ing stands the little iron bedstead-With a
cross at the foot of it and picture of the
mother OF sorrows at it's head-Where rests
the good sister whose nightly business it is
to watch the revolving cradle and to take
out new corners. She informed me that
the number of additions to the household
by this means averaged about three week,
and that so far during the current year.
eight months were then gomez, only seven
two had been received. She said that the
majority of these children whose birth -days
nobody celebrates, evidently belong to the
poorest classes and arrive naked or
wrapped In rugs, others are dressed in the
daintiest raiment that love and wealth and
the instinct OF maternal tenderness can
suggest; that with the latter is USUALLY
chllo's maintenance, and not infrequently
tear blotted letter beseeching especial
care for the forsaken baby and promising
to pay well for its future support. What
suggestions of tragedy are hereof human
frallty and divine compassionate the old
perplexing problem that came with the
tempter into Eden!
This box is
AN INEXHAUsTIBLE SOURCE OF REVENUE
for the asylum, and nearly every plight it
is secretly revolved by outside hands. (pre-
sumably by those who have children with
ln), and purses put in labeled for the SUD- |
port OF the infant received on such and such
a date No questions are ever asked, and |
no efforts made to trace the parentage of
the waits. On certain days of the week |
the Institution is open to visitors, and the |
children may be adopted by whoever de-
sires them; thus giving the unknown par
rents an opportunity of secretly seeing |
their cast-aways, and of eventually repos-
sessihg themselves of them without fear of |
as sometimes happens. |
nature is too powerful to be overcome by
guile and unfortunate babies develop
marked resemblance to the authors of their
being.
The outer walls of the quaint old building
are four feet thick and ramble around three
inner court-yards. each of which has it's
central fountain and tangle of flowers and
passion vines, and clump of olive or fig
trees shading the shrine of Christ, a Vir-
gin or saint. These courts are surrounded
oy corridors, whose tiled arches are upheld
by long lines of queerly carved pillars, now
'treaked with mold and crumbiing under
the insidious tooth of timen
THEIR Moss-aRowN PAYMENTS.
We found the path INSTRUCTED by several