The Press. — 1854-01-21 (London, England)

SADLEIR.  BURIAL CLUBS. A FEW years ago infanticide in India, espe. cially as practised among the Raj-poot was a favourite subject of philanthropic de mation. Every means was employed to pat down the abomination. Rewards were lavished on those chiefs who did not make away Ira their daughters as blind puppies or kittens are drowned ; and so far was public quo'  JANUARY 21, 1854•  eSB InS  influenced that it began to be thought that to rear a family might be a more profitable speculation than to destroy one. So the Itiki-poot population has multiplied, and missionaries and philanthropists rejoice. But the evil, extinguished in one country, breaks out in another. What we have succeeded in discountenancing among the wildest tribes of British Asia reappears in an aggravated form among the conquering race—the model nation, which affects to preach morality to all the world, which expends 200,000/. yearly to convert Hindoos, and holds female meetings to emancipate American negroes. We affirm it deliberately—infanticide, as now carried on in England, is not only more rife, but infinitely more cruel, than in the shape in which it exists, or existed, on the banks of the Indus, and among the hill tribes of Raj-pootana. These heathen parents destroyed their superfluous children, not from private lucre of gain, but lest the wealth of the family should be scattered among many claimants, and its influence thereby diminished. The murder, too, was predetermined before the birth—no time for repentance allowed—the deed purposely hurried on while the mother's weakness forbade interference, lest her prayers and tears should prevail against custom and fixed purpose. Our English peasantry speculate in slaughter, and sell the lives of their offspring ; adding, moreover, robbery to cruelty ; for the infant's name is put on the lists of a burial club, the members of which are defrauded by its murder. In England there is no fear lest parental affection should interfere with the prearranged design. The child lives, thrives, is weaned, plays about the house until the age, it may be, of three or four, until suspicion is lulled, or the pressure of a harder season than usual makes it convenient to call in the money which the parents may claim on its decease. Then the fatal sentence is carried out, generally in a straightforward, businesslike way, with very little mystery or disguise. The father or mother goes to the druggist's shop—buys the requisite quantity of arsenic— administers it in the next meal—watches composedly the dying agonies of the little victim— and sends, when all is over, to trouble the secretary of the burial club for that 5/. which is due, inviting him at the same time to verify the fact of the death. These things are not of rare or exceptional occurrence—they happen daily—and, for once that they come to light, they probably escape detection a hundred times.  Two efforts, which are worthy of all praise, have been made to abate this nuisance. The grand jury at the recent Liverpool Assizes call on Parliament to put a stop to the existence of burial societies ; and the Rev. Mr. CLAY, of Preston, whose name has been long and fa rourably known to the public in connection with questions of prison discipline, seconds their appeal in a vigorous pamphlet, full of useful details.  Let us see what is the actual state of the law. Some years ago an act was passed intended to check the evil now complained of. By this act (0 and 10 Vic., chap. 27, sec. 1) no insurance is allowed to be effected on the lives of children under six years of age. The restriction, however well meant, seems practically useless, for a child of seven or eight is Just as much in the power of its parents as one two years younger ; and the act, such as it is, seems to be a dead letter, for it only forbids infant insurance in the case of clubs established after the date of its passing—in other words, it is prospective only—while clubs which existed antecedent to its establishment are still permitted to offer premiums for childmurder. Yet farther, even the nugatory prohibitions thus imposed are notoriously disregarded ; for, at this moment, says Mr. CLAY, ": I have before me the rules of a burial so' ciety, containing 1,500 members, established last May, and taking in infant lives as boldly and openly as if the recent act of Victoria „ were already a dead letter." It is almost needless to adduce instances in which these clubs have operated as incentives to crime. These are of daily occurrence—not a week passes without some fresh illustration of the fact. Poisoning has become habitual