Facsimile PDF - Online Library of Liberty

(&port, p. 23i}, it is asserted that no action of the police can
discover the greet amount of secret infanticide whioh is daily
perpetrated in this metropolis and elsewhero. The ~am0 body
asserts t.hat “in manufacturing tosms, where cllildren are
piilced out by the day, a very large infant ulorhlity exists,
clliefly owing to thc ndministrtrtion of insufficient or improper
food and opiates, by tho women in whose chargo the children
are placed.”
And again, me have this important statement : Those
children who live, uncl rcnch adult lifs under such adverse
circumstances, nro physicially and morally weak, and in
most instances lapse into pnupcrism and crime.”
After reaciing somo of tho facts contained in this grim
Report, it is i~npossiblo not to concur in this remark of tho
Infant Life Protection Society, though it occurs to ono to
ask, what llns bccomc of tho Sucicty ? “It is astoundiug to
all those wl1o know tho facts connected with bnby-farming
that . . , the State has left this grcat mass of helpless infant
life to suffer and dio in tho hands of porsons too many of
whom mako of dcath a trade.”
The question, homovcr, reforrcd to the Committee was
merely t.hat of the best means of preventing the destruction
of the lives of i?zfnnta put out to xzo‘se for hire Cy thoir
prcnt,o, By cc put out to nurse,” was taken to mean put out
for ?nore than twenty-four hours at a time. Thus tho treatment
of children generally was not expressly considered, and
tho recommendations of the Committeo resulted in nothing
more than a Bill for the registration of persons mho take for
hire two or more infants under one year of sge to nurse for a
longer poriod thin a dny. In the next session the Bill became
law, under tho title of “ The Infant Life Protection Act,
1872 ” (35 & 36 Vict. C. 38). In uddition to registration,
the law requires every registered baby-farmer to send notice
to the coroner of all deaths in the registered houses, 80 that
inquests may be held in the absence of medical certifi&ee,
eatisfactory to the coroner.
we will presently consider the working of this A&.
Mthongh the %port of this Committee contains the largest
r2