CHAPTER V.

INFANTICIDE.

6

AND HAVE FILLED THIS PLACE WITH THE BLOOD OF
INNOCENTS.'

IN taking our leave of the dreadful region of suicide, we necessarily, although reluctantly, enter upon the more putrid and loathsome region of Foticide and Infanticide. These two sins and crimes, now so alarmingly prevalent, and so largely sympathized with by a numerous class of sensationalists, although distinct, are so closely allied as to admit of being considered under the one designation of Infanticide. We are, in addressing ourselves to this species of murder, fully alive to the claims of modesty, and also to the hazard we run of initiating some in the mysteries of crime, which it is our object to prevent. But we are driven, from the increasing demand for sensational tales, the very spicery of which consists in artfully working up the reader's expectation of this as the attractive

climax, to make an exposure of what the Apostle of the Gentiles says, 'is such as should not once be named, even among the heathen.' Our apology for even hinting at so polluting a subject is expressed by the Christian poet in the following lines :

'Oh that a verse had pow'r, and could command,
Far, far away, these flesh-flies of the land,
Who fasten without mercy on the fair,

And suck, and leave a craving maggot there.
Howe'er disguis'd th' inflammatory tale,
And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil,
Such writers and such readers owe the gust
And relish of their pleasure all to lust.'

That criminal abortion or fœticide, by mechanical means and medicinal irritants, is very largely and most painfully prevalent, is freely acknowledged by those who, from their profession, have the best means of knowing. Taylor, in his 'Manual of Medical Jurisprudence,' says: 'It cannot be doubted that this crime is very frequent. Applications are continually made to druggists by the lower classes for drugs for this purpose. The applicants appear to have no idea of the criminality of the act.' But how deplorable soever this obviously reluctant confession of Mr Taylor is, it is clear from his long and elaborate treatise on this subject, that the applications are not confined to druggists, and the applicants are not all of the lower classes.'

And is not, as Mr Taylor's Manual demonstrates, a very particular and critical knowledge of this subject an essential part of the medical profession, and a part acquiring every day a very special prominency? Is it not a notorious fact that there is in London a medical society, which has within a few years changed its more formidable mode of advertising, and commands very high medical talent, for the express purpose of giving advice in cases of abortion? And, ex natura rei, the machinery of such a society being secret, deprives the community of anything like statistical information; while such females are taught to operate themselves, and to communicate the success of their operations to companions in licentiousness and in crime; and the amount of which nefarious and murderous trade must exceed calculation. In confirmation of the dreadful truth of this intrinsically rotten state of a large portion of British society, we dare not reveal the information gathered from the free but confidential confessions of not a few of the very first names in the medical profession, and whose strenuous and moral efforts to stem the polluted and polluting tide, signally redound to their honour.

We are not unaware of the too common and subtilized dogma which has been readily adopted, and murderously acted upon, by the lower classes,'

that abortion in its criminal aspect is simply the expulsion of matter without a soul. And without formally debating this extremely hazardous, if not immoral, speculation, the repetition of which from the professorial chair to young students we protest against, it is sufficient to state, that the Author of our being designed the matter as the receptacle of an immortal soul; and that if the union of the two is not severed, it most unquestionably is prevented by violent abortion. And we can with difficulty believe that a sound moral intellect will try to chop logic on any essential moral difference betwixt the two phases of the one question. Unless we are prepared to ignore and repudiate the authoritative voice of revelation, we must admit that the preparation of the matter in question, how shapeless soever in its earlier stages, is divine, and that every intelligent believer will feel his obligation to make its preservation and completion in the womb special matter of a song to his God. 'I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were

fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!'

But besides this positive scriptural refutation of the dogma on which we are animadverting, is it so easy a matter to tell at what precise time God breathes into our nostrils the breath of life, when we become living souls?

Are not both the manner of the growth of the substance of the child, and the time of its animation by the soul, known only to God, the Former of both?' 'As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all.' And does not the fact, as clearly brought out in evidence in court when such cases are tried, show that scarcely one case of alleged criminal abortion has taken place within the general period of pregnancy? thereby furnishing clearest proof of murderous intention. In the light of this well-ascertained judicial fact, we reach the painful conclusion, that the dogma adverted to is working havoc upon female morality, and that although in one sense, and that physically, it is sound, yet in the moral and true sense, as affecting the question of violent abortion, it is false, and its circulation is slaying its tens of thousands.

Among the causes that have contributed to