Defence of a Parif in regard to its Infant Poor.

From

PHILO

PAUPER I S

LETTER

I.

I

Have read your Earnest Appeal. That there are good and bad of all forts, must be confeffed; but many perfons of the parish in queftion, who have ferved offices, are men of property, and of great candor and humanity, and would fcorn, as much as Mr. Hanway, to be wilfully guilty of fuch abuses to poor infants.

I am very credibly informed, that St. Clements parish had many children dropped in it within the time you mention; the truth of which the printer of the Daily Advertiser can affirm, as they were all advertifed in that paper. I have made fome enquiry concerning this matter, and find it very true; and shall beg leave to mention two or three inftances relative to these foundlings, which I was informed of by fome persons of reputation, on my faid enquiry. One child was dropped (or at least found) at eleven o'clock at night, at the top of Strandlane. Humanity taught the officer to fend it to a parish nurse to be taken immediate care of; but the venereal disease was fo rooted in the blood and bones of the child, and it was fo fhockingly fcabbed from head to foot, that it lived but a few days.

Another child was dropped in fo artful a manner, that it was not difcovered till the next day at noon by its cries; this was alfo fent to the nurse to be taken care of.

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laft mentioned child was apprehended; but, by th lenity of the worthy Magiftrate before whom she wa taken, no punishment was inflicted, on promife of nev offending again.

It is in these cases the children fo frequently die, b the mothers baseness, in withholding from them th breaft, and acting fuch a brutal inhuman part by them as to drop them in the ftreet: it is almoft next to a impoffibility, when a tender infant is feparated from it mother, fewed up in a basket, dropt, and expofed f much to the weather, without any kind of nurture for it to live; and it is alfo impoffible for a parif nurfe to bring up children in so tender a manner a their mothers can, because the breast is their chief fuf tenance; and when that's kept from them, diforders and illnesses of different kinds immediately attack them.

If the infamous women who dropt their babes, and who deferve not the tender name of mother, were to have an adequate punishment inflicted on them for fuch offences, it might be a means of preferving, in a great meafure, the lives of many infants, who fall a facrifice to their parents barbarity, and a means alfo of keeping the workhouses more clear of them.

The poor laws want much amendment throughout the whole kingdom. Some parishes indeed have acts of

parliament

parliament peculiar to themselves, among whom is the parish of St. Clement Danes; but the ill ufe, or in other words no ufe to fignify, that has been made of it, gives great umbrage to feveral responsible inhabitants, who have declared, if a workhouse was built (which by the act they have a power to do) there might be a faving on account of the poor, from 500l. to 1000l. a year: but I do not know how it is, the act cost near 300l. and it has lain almoft dormant ever fince, entirely fo as to the executive parts concerning the poor.

I fhall conclude with faying, that in the parifla of St. Clement Danes, things are amifs, which might be much amended for the good of the inhabitants, if they would with spirit enforce the execution of the act of parliament, more especially if the principal ones would take the lead to accomplish so falutary a work.

P. P.

Farther Defence of a Parish in regard to its Infant Poor.

From PHILO

PAUPERIS.

II.

LETTER

HEN affairs of any import are made known

WHE

to the public by means of the prefs, whether they make their way through the channel of a public news-paper, or by way of a pamphlet, is a matter of indifference; certain it is that fuch publications lie open to every one for the perufal and free difcuffion of the matter therein contained; and, as I have taken the free

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dom to remark curforily on your pamphlet, it may not be improper to affign fome reafon for my fo doing.

I reflected within myself-furely no parish officer could be fo totally loft to the dictates and feelings of humanity as to be the caule of thofe poor infants deaths in fo vaft a degree as they are charged with; fuch an inftance of cruelty and barbarity, if a fact, deserves not only the fevereft cenfure, but demands a punishment As a man and as a Christian, I equal to the offence. As a man was fhocked to find fuch a number of lives loft to the community, as in the Earnest Appeal are fet forth.

Upon fearch, I find by the regifter of St. Clement Danes for 1765, there appears to be nine foundlings, or dropped children, (which is more, I believe, than fell to the fhare of many other parifhes within that year; fome of which, when found, were afflicted with different disorders; whilst others, through ill usage from their brutish parents, had scarcely, to appearance, any visible figns of life remaining, all which died under the age of four months; and fix cafuals, under the Age of eight months. I am convinced there are many parishes full as bad as St. Clements, but must be excufed defcending to particulars; every parish muft ftand on its own bottom, and answer for its own faults and defects.

The officers of St. Clement Danes, have ftrictly followed the directions in the act of parliament, in figning and returning their register to the company of parish clerks. If they have done amifs in this affair, I cannot fee who they are accountable to for their remiffness but to the legislative power of this kingdom;

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the minds of the officers of those parishes, who have tronot as yet placed their children out to nurfes, by fend

ing them into fome healthy part of the country immediately.

T

P. P.

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Answer to the Defence.

To PHILO PAUPER IS,

LETTER

I.

I

Grant that there are good and bad of all forts; and

that many inhabitants of St. Clement Danes, who have ferved in Parish Offices, are men of property, and of great candor and humanity, and would fcorn as much bas myself, to be wilfully guilty of such abuses to poor infants. But this is not the question.

If thefe 18 children had been fent to the Foundling Hospital, deferted by their mothers, as you complain, to judge from fact, instead of the whole 18 being dead info fhort a time as ten months, to all human ap\pearance, at least 6 of them would have been living at the end of ten years.

That the breaft is the way Nature has appointed to nourish a child, is as true as that man is born of a