Part 30 (1/2)
Though this is a mere estimate, there is a strong presumptive evidence of its not being exaggerated, from the enormous proportion, in New York, of stillbirths, which reached in one year (1868) the sum of 2,195, or more than seven per cent of the whole number of births. Now, it is well-known that the women who are mothers of illegitimate children are much more likely to be badly attended or neglected in their confinement than mothers in wedlock, and thus to suffer under this misfortune.
As to the relation of illegitimacy to crime, there are some striking statistics from France. Out of 5,758 persons confined in the bagnios in France, there were, according to Dr. Parry, in 1853, 391 illegitimate.
Of the 18,205 inmates of the State Prisons in France during the same time, 880 were illegitimate, and 361 foundlings. ”One out of every 1,300 Frenchmen,” says the same authority, ”becomes the subject of legal punishment, while one out of 158 foundlings finds his way to the State Prisons.” In the celebrated Farm-school of Mettrai, according to recent reports, out of 3,580 young convicts since its foundation, 534 were illegitimate and 221 foundlings, or more than twenty per cent.
There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that a large number of children born out of wedlock, and therefore exposed to great hards.h.i.+p, temptation, and misery, are cast out every year on this community. A very large proportion of these unfortunate little ones die, or, with their mothers, are dragged down to great depths of wretchedness and crime.
What can be done for them? The first impulse is, naturally, to gather them into an Asylum. But what is the experience of Asylums?
ASYLUMS.
The London Foundling Hospital, one of the most famous of these inst.i.tutions, was founded in 1740. During the first twenty years of its existence, out of the 14,034 children received in it, only 4,400 lived be apprenticed, a mortality of more than seventy per cent The celebrated St. Petersburg Hospital for Foundlings contained, between the years 1772 and 1789, 7,709 children, of whom 6,606 died. Between the years 1783 and 1797, seventy-six per cent died. We have not, unfortunately, its later statistics. The Foundling Hospital of Paris, another well-known inst.i.tution of this cla.s.s, was founded by Vincent de Paul in 1638. In the twenty years ending in 1859, out of 48,525 infants admitted, 27,119 died during the first year, or fifty-six per cent. In 1841, a change was made in the administration of this Hospital, of which we shall speak later.
In this city there is, under the enlightened management of the Commissioners' of Charities and Correction, an Infant Hospital on Randall's Island, where large numbers of illegitimate and abandoned children are cared for. In former years, under careless management of this inst.i.tution, the mortality of these helpless infants has reached ninety to ninety-five per cent.; but in recent years, under the new management, this has been greatly reduced. In 1867, out of the 928 ”nurse's children” or children without their mothers, who were received, 642 died, or about seventy per cent In 1868, 76.77 per cent of these unfortunates died, and in 1869, 70.32 per cent; while in the same hospital, of the children admitted with their mothers, only 20.44 per cent died during that year--a death-rate less than that of the city at large, which is about twenty-six per cent; while in Ma.s.sachusetts, for children under one year, it is about thirteen per cent.
It will be observed that the mortality of foundlings and orphans in this inst.i.tution was reduced in 1869 from 76.79 per cent. to 70.32. Again, in 1870, a still greater reduction was made to 58.99. This most encouraging result was brought about by the erection of an Infants' Hospital by the Commissioners, the employment of a skillful physician, and, above all, by engaging paid nurses instead of pauper women, to take care of the children. In Ma.s.sachusetts the experience is equally instructive. ”In the State Almshouse,” says the able Secretary of the Board of Charities, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, ”the mortality of these infants previous to 1857, reached the large proportion of 80 out of every 100.”
In the Tewksbury Alms-house the mortality in 1860 among the foundlings was forty-seven out of fifty-four, or eighty-seven per cent.
In 1867, the most enlightened experts in charities in Ma.s.sachusetts took up the subject of founding an Infant-Asylum, and resolved to inst.i.tute one which should be free from the abuses of the old system. In this new Asylum only those children should be received whose cases had been carefully investigated, and no more than thirty foundlings were ever to be collected under one roof, so that as much individual care might be exercised as is practicable. Yet even under this wise plan the mortality during the first six months at the Dorchester Asylum reached nearly fifty per cent, out of only thirty-six children; though this mortality was a great gain over that of the State Alms-houses.
The truth seems to be that each infant needs one nurse or care-taker, and that if you place these delicate young creatures in large companies together in any public building, an immense proportion are sure to die.
When one remembers the difficulty of carrying any child in this climate through the first and second summers, and how a slight change in the milk, or neglect of covering, will bring on that scourge of our city, cholera infantum, and how incessant the watchfulness of our mothers is to bring up a healthy child, we can understand why from one-half to two-thirds of the foundlings, many of them fatally weakened when brought to the Asylums, die in our public inst.i.tutions. Where the mothers are allowed to take care of their own children in the Asylums, as many survive as in the outside world. But to support one mother for each infant is an immense expense; so that two children are commonly put under the care of the mother. The neglect, however, of the strange child soon becomes apparent even to the casual visitor; and these poor foundlings are often fairly starved or abused to death by the mother forced to nurse them. The treatment of these poor helpless infants by brutal women in our public inst.i.tutions is one of the saddest chapters in the history of human wickedness.
What, then, is to be done for these unfortunate foundlings? No Asylum can afford to board and employ one wet-nurse for each infant. How can the children be saved at a moderate expense? The feasible and practicable course for this object is the
”PLACING-OUT SYSTEM.”
This plan has been in operation in France for centuries, and is now carried out under a public department called _”Les services des Enfants a.s.sistes”_ recently under the direction of M. Husson, and known generally as the Bureau Ste. Apolline. This bureau deals with the whole cla.s.s of abandoned and outcast and dest.i.tute infants. Instead of keeping these children in an Asylum, this office at once dispatches them to nurses already selected in the country.
The whole matter is thoroughly organized; there are agents to forward the nurses and children, inspectors to select nurses and look after the infants and take charge of the disburs.e.m.e.nts, and medical officers to investigate the condition of both children and nurses, and to visit them monthly, and give medical attendance. The nurse is obliged to bring a certificate of good character from the Commune, and of her being in proper condition to take care of a foster-child. She is not permitted to take charge of an infant unless her own is nine months old, and has been weaned. The nurse is bound to send her foster-child, as she grows up, to school, and to some place of religious instruction. The bureau has thus relieved a great number of children during ten years, from 1855 to 1864, the total number amounting to 21,944.
That it has been wonderfully successful is shown by the mortality, which is now only about thirty per cent., or nearly the same with the general death-rate among young children in New York. Under this new poor-law administration for dest.i.tute and abandoned children, the famous Hospital for Foundlings has been changed into a mere depot for children sent to places and nurses in the country, with the most happy results in point of mortality. Thus, in 1838, the hospital admitted 5,322 children, and lost 1,211; in 1868, of 5,603 admitted, only 442 died, or about eight per cent. Of 21,147 sent to the country, the deaths were only 1,783, or less than ten per cent Of 6,009 admitted in 1869, 4,260 were abandoned children, and the deaths from the above number were 495.
The French administration does not cease with paying the board of these foundlings in their country homes; it looks carefully after their clothing, their education, their religious instruction, and even their habits of economy. The outlay by the Government for these various objects is considerable. In 1869, the traveling expenses of these little waifs reached the sum of 170,107 francs. The payments to the peasants to induce them to educate the foundlings amounted to 85,458 francs for the same year; the savings of the children, put in official savings-boxes, amounted to 394,076 francs, while 15,936 francs were given out as prizes.
The moral effects have been encouraging. In 1869, out of the 9,000 _eleves_ from thirteen to twenty-eight years, only thirty-two had appeared before Courts of Justice for trifling offenses; thirty-two had shown symptoms of insubordination, and nearly the same number had been imprisoned.
It should be remembered that this bureau has charge of the whole cla.s.s of juvenile paupers, or Almshouse children, in Paris, as well as foundlings, whom it treats by placing out in country homes. In 1869, it thus provided for and protected 25,486 children, of whom 16,845 were from one day to twelve years, and 9,001 from twelve to twenty-one years.
For this purpose, it employed two princ.i.p.al inspectors, twenty-five sub-inspectors, and two hundred and seventy-eight physicians.
The expense of this bureau has been wonderfully slight, only averaging two dollars and sixty cents per annum for each child. In an Asylum the average annual expenditure for each child could not have been less than one hundred and fifty dollars. This Bureau Ste. Apolline must be carefully distinguished from the private bureaus in Paris for a.s.sisting foundlings, under which the most shocking abuses have occurred, the death-rate reaching among their subjects 70.87, and even ninety per cent.
The ”boarding-out” system has been a part of the Alms-house system of Hamburg for years, and has proved eminently successful and economical.
In Berlin, more than half the pauper children, and all the foundlings, are thus dealt with. In Dublin, both Protestant and Catholic a.s.sociations have pursued this plan with dest.i.tute orphans and foundlings, with marked success. The Protestant Society had, in 1866, 453 orphans under its charge, and had placed out, or returned to friends, 1,256; its provincial branches had 2,208 under their care, and had placed out 5,374. All the orphans placed out by the Society are apprenticed. Great care is used in inspecting the homes in which children are put, and in selecting employers. The whole a.s.sociation is well organized. The annual cost of the children, dividing the whole expense by the number of children placed and cared for, is only from fifty dollars to fifty-five dollars per head. The Roman Catholic a.s.sociation, St. Brigid's, is even more economical in its work, as the labor is mainly performed by the members of the sisterhoods. Within seven years five hundred children were taken in charge, of whom two hundred had been adopted or placed out. The children thus provided for in country families are constantly visited by the conductors of the orphanage and by the parish priest. The expense of the whole enterprise is very slight.
Similar experiments are being made in England with pauper children, and, despite Prof. Fawcett's somewhat impractical objections, they have been found to be successful and far more economical than the old system.
THE FAMILY PLAN.