26 Human Physiology. 



infanticide is now so common in all its cool detail of deliberate 

 cruelty; there is, from the repetition of the same features, so 

 little of novelty, that the most persevering student of the 

 proceedings of criminal courts passes over, as wholly uninterest- 

 ing, the cases of wilful child murder. We can safely predicate, 

 three times out of four, at what time the murder was done, 

 how it was done, where the little victim was hid, and how it 

 was discovered. The inquest is dull, the trial at the assizes 

 more so ; there will be no verdict of murder^ the poor creature 

 only concealed the birth. The Judge will, in compassionate 

 tones, pass a sentence of some eight or ten months' imprison- 

 ment; the officers of the prison, with a certain sort of pitying 

 gallantry, will show the culprit the way from the dock; she will 

 be gently dealt with in the gaol; be an object for what is called 

 interest; she returns to her home, having been well fed and 

 kindly treated; none will shun her has she not suffered for 

 her crime? Who shall call it murder, when the old gentleman 

 in scarlet, with the wig, told the jury, they had. no law to say it 

 was?" 



A Report of the Harveian Society informs us that " since 

 the great change which was effected in the law in 1834 by 

 which the burden of sustaining illegitimate children was re- 

 moved from the shoulders of the putative father to those of 

 the mother, the population has increased less than a third, 

 whilst the number of illegitimate births has more than doubled. 

 The growth of infanticide has been more rapid still. We must 

 not suppose, however, that the destruction of life among ille- 

 gitimate children is to be measured by the statistics of infanti- 

 cide alone. We are told that in certain districts of Marylebone 

 from 4 5 to 96 per cent, die while out to dry-nurse, the mothers 

 being required to wet-nurse the children of the upper and 

 respectable classes. Thus, the families of one set are succoured 

 and sustained by the sacrifice of the families of another set: 

 and grand ladies who are too proud and delicate to be natural 



