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162 METHODS OF SOCIALd REFORM.
1870), 8 long oontrovemp took plsoe in The Manchester
Guardian as to the existence and causes of this excessive
mortality. It was evoked by a paper read by Mr. Baxendell
to the Litcrsry and Philosophical Society of Manchester
throwing doubt upon the facts ; but it nppeared to be conclusively
shown by Dr. Arthur Ransomo that t.here was an
enormous death-rate of very young children in Manchester
and certain other towns. About tho aame time Sir W. T.
Charley, Mr. Ernest Hart, Mr. George Hacstings, and other
gcntlcmen formed an Infant Life Protection Society; and tho
subjcct was rho brought before tho House of Commons by
tho first-nsntud gontlcman. Tho Report of the Select Committco
on thc Protection of Infant Life* contains startling
rcvchtionu, which have never received the attention they
imperatively demand. Tho following passage from the Report
of the Committco (p. 4) contains a, concise statement of what
they considered to be proved concerning infant mortality :
“ The ordinary mortality among infant children under ono Fear of
ago is cvtirnated at 15 or It; per cent. ; but the mere fact of their being
Ilnntl-nursed, instcad of hitlg Ircnst-nurscd, will, unless great care is
taken, rniso the death-rate, cven in well-conducted ‘ homes,’ to 40 per
cent. nrld upwnrds. In tho infcrior rlnss of lIouses, where the children
put out tu llurso nre, for tho rnost part, illegitimate, the dcnth-rate may
bo 44 to IjO p r crclt. in the 1.nrc~l di>trictn, and iu the large towns, where
the sauitnry curditions arc Inow nnfacournblc, it mounts up to 70, 80,
or crou !K) !’or cent. All the witnesses coucur in this ; and there are
tllrco or four circumetaucce which strongly confirm their gene131
opiuion.”
It is frequently implied or stated throughout the “Report,
Evidence, and Appendices,” that the present treatment of
infants often amounts pmcticnlly to infanticide. According to
tho Into Dr. Lankester, then coroner for Middlesex, illegitimate
children nro ‘( killed off ” before they are one Sear old ; and
tho Committee calmly assume that not more than one in ten
of suck children ever lives to grow up. In a petition presented
to the Homo Secretary by the British Medical &sociation
Parliamentary Paper, No. 372, 20th Jnly, 1871. Collected Seriep
701. vii. p 607.