The herald., 1896-02-16
lNFANTIClDE
BY LADY COOK. (Nee CLAFLIN.)

The death of little child appeals to
our tenderest sympathies. Its delicate
mute face and clasped hands fill us
with infinite pity. We fight against
the fell diseases which blast these
sweetest buds of our race, and crush
the parents fondest hopes. 1t may be
our minds 60 back to Bethlehem, with
its smiling babe lying upon Mary's
breast. Other infants also. "from two
years old and UNDER" hang from the
bosoms or play about the knees of
other mothers. Suddenly the quiet
Judaean village is scene of infantile
sls lighter. Swarthy Roman warriors
convert into the ehambles of in.
nocence, and the mothers are
bathed with their children's blood.
The church commemorates this event
on "The Innocents' Day" For ages
poets have sung it and painters de-
picted it. Yet less than 200 little ones
perished on that memorable occasion.
There is far larger number-thou-
sands for hundreds-annually done to
death in this country, moro foully
murdered than these, but neither
church nor poet nor painter immortal
izss their innocent suffering,. Instead
OF pagan soldiery butchering Jewish
children, Christian mothers slaughter
their own babes. Those did it at the
command of the prince, in order to
save his throne. These perform it
themselves, usually from shame, from
fear, from broken hearts. And we are
80 well-b bred, from the archbishop
down, that we keep our prayers and
our wailings for the small Bethlehem
ite massacre 1900 years ago, and dis
creetly pass by our own English "In-
nocents'' today without word or
tear.
Week after week our coroners point
out the national infamy of these MUIR
ders, but no one heedeth. Day after
day adds to the number of the CHASTITY
roll. Can nothing be done to stay
them, or are these also among the
into? There must be something fuuda-
mentally wrong when 80 many mothers
are impelled to outrage the natural in
stincts OF maternity. That feeling,
which governs alike the incubation of
the lowly earwig and the stately
pheasant; which throbs the same in the
breast of the little mouse mother or
the high-born matron-that universal
impulse which conserves the family,
the species, the race-cannot be di-
verted except by some great mental or
moral catastrophe unless our moral
sentiments and our laws also operate
against it. There are two forms
of infanticide-One before birth
and the other after. Both have
been almost universally practiced
from the earliest times, and both are
common in foreign countries and in
England today. Speaking of the
former, Mr. Lecky, in his History of
European Morals, tells US that "a long
chain of writer's, both Pagan and Chris
tian, represent the practice as avowed
and almost universal. They describe
it as resulting, not simply from licen-
tiousness or from poverty, but even
from 80 slight a motive as vanity,
which made mothers shrink from the
Disagreement of childbirth. They
speak of mother who had never de-
stroyed her unborn offspring as de-
serving of signal praise, and they as
sure us that the frequency of the crime
was such that it gave rise to regular
profession" We have amongst us
similar licentiousness and poverty,
married women-many Of high degree
similarly vain, and sufficient num-
Der of medical men and midwives en-
ployed in this practice to constitute it
a profession.
1t would seem strange that go abhor-
rent custom should have largely de-
pended upon metaphysical subtlety.
did we not know that most Of our
abominations have like origin. 1t
WAS a moot question with Pagan and
Christian philosophers as to the time
when the fPtus acquires nature, an
therefore the rights of a separate be-
ing in other words, when does it
possess soul? Plutarch, in one OF his
treatises, has a remarkable collection
of ancient speculations on the topic.
The Stoics made the soul and respirs-
tion commence together. The Justin
ian code fixes the union at forty days
after conception. Thus no law in
Greece condemned abortion, and the
Roman law did not punish it when
voluntary until towards the end of the
second century. For it was thought that
the f9tus was but part of the mother.
and that she had the same right to re-
move it as if it were wen. Yet the
practice met with much disapproval.
although 30 general. Ovid reproached
Corinna for having been guilty of the
act. A niece of Domitisn died in con-
sequence of the came. Seneca praised
Helvia for not having resorted to it.
Another writer classed it as one degree
worse than mothers putting out her
children to nurse, and others described
it as positively criminal. 1t was one
Of the practical glories of Christianity.
however, that it condemned this crime
from the very first, and denounced it
as positive murder, although the the
ologic speculations which afterwards
Imported this reformation were most
,volting. Thus queen of Portugal,
ster to our Henry V, when her life
in danger, refused a medicine to
elerate the birth of her unborn
d, on the ground that "she would
n purchase her temporal life by the
Ell al damnatiop of her soul. For the
tn .ogians taught that from the mo-
ment OF animation the foetus became
an immortal being, doomed for Adams
siu; il it perished unborn and unbap-
tized, to be "cast into the abyss of
hell" By the legislation of modern
times, however, ''it is treated as dis.
tinct being from the moment of con-
csption.' and to destroy it at any
period is an act of murder.
pha 1ostrucfiOD of ohiJJrav, oetor