The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1895-11-08
For THE JASPER COURIER
Infanticide and Moral Standards for Wo'
men and Men.

The death Of little child appeals K
to our tendereSt sympathies. lis
delicate mute face, and clasped |
hands fill Us with infinite pity. Welc
fight against the fell disease which (
blast these sweetest buds OF our
race. and crush the parents fondest
hopes. II NAV be our minds goI
back to Bethlehem, with it, smiling
Babe living upon Mary's breast.
Other infants also, from two years
old and under hang from the
bo~oms or play about the knees OF
other mothers. Suddenly the quiet
.Iudran village is scene OF infan-
tile slaughter. Swarthy RomanI'
warriors convert it into shambles OF
innocence. aud the mothers are
hathed with their children's blood.
The Church commentaries this
event on The Innocents' Day.
For ages poets have suLg it, and
painters depicted it. Yet less than
two hundred little ones peri~hed onl
that memorable occasion. There Is
4, far larger number-thousands lori
hundreds-annually done to DEATH
in this country, more foullv mur-
dercd than those, but neitherI
Church. nor poet, nor painter, I'M
mortalizes their innocent sufferlngs.
Instead of Pagan soidierv butcher
sing Jewish children. Christian moth
er- slaughter their their own babes.
Those did it at the command Of the
Prince, in order 10 save his throne.
These perform it themselves,
usually from shame, from tear,
from broken hearts. And we are so
welI-bred. from the Archbishop
/ down. that we keep our prayers
and our wailings for the small Beth
.lehemite massacre nineteen hun
!; dred wears ago, and discreetly pass
| by our own English ''lnnocents'
to-day without word or tear.
!. Week after week our coroner-
A point ont the national lnfamy o
/ these murders, bat no one heedeth
e Dav after day adds to the numbe
. Of the ghastly roll. Can nothing
: be done to stay them, or are these
i also among the things which mus
e not be inquired into? There mus
be something fundamentally wron'
i when 20 many mothers are lmpell
eled To outrage the natural instincts
: of maternity. That feeling, which
a governs alike the incubation OF th'
olowlv earwig and the stately pheas
v ant which throbs the same in tn
e breast Of the little mouse-mother Q
the high born matron-that unlver
i sal impulse which conserves tn
nfarnily. the species, the race-can
a not be diverted except by som
a gr. at catastrophe unless our mora
dsentiments and our laws also oper
is ate against it. There are two form
i of infanticide-one before birth am
l. the other after. Both have bee
Dfalmost universally practlced iron
ythe earliest times, and both ar
:. common in foreign countries and Il
d England to-day. Speaking Of tn
,tformer, Mr.. Lecky, in his "Hiftor.
of European Morals" tells us tina
a "a long chain of writer's, both Pa
,s gan and Christian, represent tn
.hpractice a avowcd and almost uni
: versal. They describe it as result
oling, not simply from liccntiousnes
ID or from poverty, but even from
,e slight a motive as vanity, whic
r. made mothers shrink from the dis
i-Ifirnrement of childbirth. The
allspeak Of a mother who had neve
ID DESTROYED her unborn offspring a
illIdeserving Of signal praise, and the
1t assure u that the frequency OF tn
escrime was such that il gave rise
r. regular profession" We hay
or ramong us similar Righteousness an
M poverty. married women-many
ntlhirh deyrce-similarly vain, and
number Of medical me
inland midwives employed in tn
I'M practice to constitute it a profession
,erI 1t would seem strange that 50 al
custom should have larg
,er ly depended upon metaphysic
nr subtlety, did we not know tn
neImost Of our denominations have
like origin. II was moot questic
with Pagan and Christian phllos
phers as to the time when the frt
,le ''acquires the nature. and thereto
I; the rights. Of scperatc being;
\; other words, when does it possess
-, soul? Plutarch, in one OF J
,nltreatises, = has a remarkable cole
!, ton Of ancient spcculations on Il
m topic. The Stoics made the 50
" and respiration commence togeth'
The .justinian code fixes the u
ion NJ forty days after conceptio
nee Thus no law in Greece condemn
cat abortion. and the Roman law q
not punish il when voluntary un
toward the end Of the second CO