ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



969 



the knowledge of the mother, tel- 

 ling her that the infant was still- 

 born. Others have ascribed the 

 practice to a belief in the metemp- 

 sychosis, or transmigration of souls 

 into other bodies ; that the parents, 

 Seeing their children must be doom- 

 ed to poverty, think it is better at 

 once to let the soul escape in search 

 of a more happy asylum, than to 

 linger in one condemned to want 

 and wretchedness. No degree of 

 superstition, one would imagine, 

 could prevail upon a parent to rea- 

 son thus, in that most anxious and 

 critical moment, when the combined 

 e/for(s of hope and fear, of exqui- 

 site joy and severe pain, agitate by 

 tarns the mother's breast. Besides, 

 the Chinese trouble themselves very 

 little with superstitious notions, un- 

 less where they apprcliend some 

 personal danger. Nor is it more 

 probable that the midwife should 

 take upon herself the commission of 

 i, concealed and voluntary murder 

 of an Innocent and helpless infant, 

 for the sake of sparing those feel- 

 ings in another, of which the sup- 

 position implies she could not pos- 

 sibly partake; and if she should be 

 encouraged by the father, whose af- 

 fections for an infant child may be 

 more gradually unfolded than the 

 mother's, to perpetrate so horrid an 

 act, we must allow that to the ex- 

 istence of unnatural and murder- 

 ous parents, must be added that of 

 hired ruffians; so that Chinese vir- 

 tue would gain little by such a sup- 

 position. 



" It is much more probable that 

 extreme poverty and hopeless indi- 

 gence, the frequent experience of 

 direful famines, and the scenes of 

 misery and calamity occasioned by 

 them, acting on minds whose affec- 

 tions are not very powerful, induce 

 this unnatural criujfj which common 



custom has encouraged, and which 

 is not prohibited by positive law. 

 That this is the case, and that future 

 advantages are not overlooked, will 

 appear from the circumstance of al- 

 most all the infants that are exposed 

 being females, who arc the least 

 able to provide for themselves, and 

 the least profitable to their parents ; 

 and the practice is most frequent in 

 crowded cities, where not only po- 

 verty more commonly prevails, but 

 so many examples daily occur of in- 

 humanity, of summary punishment, 

 acts of violence and cruelty, that 

 the mind becomes callous and habi- 

 tuated to scenes that once would 

 have shocked, and is at length 

 scarcely susceptible of the enormity 

 of crimes. 



" I am afraid, however, it is but 

 too common a practice even in the 

 remotest corners of the provinces. 

 A respectable French missionary, 

 now in London, who was many 

 years in Fo-kicn, told me that he 

 once happene^d to call on one of his 

 converts just at the moment his wife 

 was brought to-bed. The devoted 

 infant was delivered to the father, 

 in order to be plunged into a jar of 

 water that was prepared for the pur- 

 pose. The missionary expostulated 

 with the man on the heinousncss of 

 an act that was ai crime against God 

 and nature. The man persisted that, 

 having already more than he could 

 support, it would be a greater crime 

 to preserve a life condemned t& 

 want and misery, than to take it 

 away without pain. The mission- 

 ary, finding that no argument of his 

 was likely to divert him from his 

 purpose, observed^ " that, as a 

 " Christian, ho could not refuse him 

 " the satisfaction of saving the in- 

 " faut'ssoul by baplism." During 

 the ceremony, as the father held 

 (he iiifiint in his arutj, he happened 



to 



