FOUNDLING HOSPITALS are charitable institutions established in most large towns in Europe, for the reception of children exposed or deserted by their parents. The exposing of children was a common practice among the nations of antiquity; for notwithstanding that infanticide might be practised with impunity, yet natural feeling would prompt parents to expose their children rather than become the immediate instrument of their death. For this purpose they generally selected such places as were much frequented, where there was a chance of their attracting the notice of the benevolent. In Athens and Rome there were places set apart for the purpose. The children so found were declared to be the slaves or absolute property of those by whom they were reared. Some of these were saved from death, not from humane motives, but that their foster-fathers might, by mutilating their persons, and exhibiting them in the streets, obtain an infamous livelihood from the alms given them by passers-by. This detestable practice seems to have been carried on pretty extensively; and it is even
Foundling vindicated by Seneca, upon the ground of their being slaves. Hospitals. "Gallio fecit illam questionem:—An in expositis ladi possit respublica? Non potest, inquit. An ladi possit in aliqua sua parte? Hec nulla respublica pars est; non incensu illos invenies, non in testamentis." (Seneca Controvers., v. 33.)
In the fourth century the exposure of children was prohibited by Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian; but the edicts of these emperors were only partially effective, the slavery of these unfoundlings continuing till the year 530, when it was abolished by Justinian. Even in ancient times the state made provision for the preservation of foundlings; but the institution of foundling hospitals is of later date. The first distinct trace of an express foundation of this kind is at Milan, in 787. In the year 1198, Innocent III. allotted a part of the great hospital of Spirito Santo at Rome to the reception of foundlings; and with a view to prevent the crime of infanticide, by affording persons every facility for depositing their illegitimate children without the risk of being recognized, there was fixed in the wall of the hospital a turning-box, in which the infant was placed, and taken in upon a signal being given by ringing a bell. The same secret mode of admission was afterwards adopted in many similar institutions on the Continent, and at a later period in those of London and Dublin. This facility of disposing of children led, as might have been foreseen, to very great abuses; since any woman, of whatever rank, might thus avoid the stigma of appearing as the mother of an illegitimate child; and unnatural parents, rich or poor, could avoid the expense and trouble of rearing their own children. This system has been said to find favour in some countries on account of the numbers it furnishes for the military service. The great foundling hospital of Paris was established in 1620, and up to the year 1807 had received 464,628 children. The number of foundlings in France in 1784 amounted to 40,000; in 1798 to more than 51,000; and in 1822 to 138,500. In 1847, out of 918,581 children born in France, the illegitimate births amounted to 65,626, and the foundlings to 27,284. The proportion of illegitimate children in Paris is one in every three births; and of the total number of illegitimate children, about 58 out of every 100 become inmates of the foundling hospital, where nearly two-thirds of them die before they are a year old. (See Guerrey, Statistique Morale de la France; and Benoist de Châteauneuf, Considérations sur les Enfants-trouvés dans les Principaux Etats de l'Europe.) According to the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes for 1855, the total number of births in Paris in 1853 was 34,049, of which 10,833 were illegitimate.
The mortality in foundling hospitals has always been very large, though this evil has been greatly mitigated by improved management, and the practice of giving out the children to be nursed. Our own country, when such institutions existed in their original form, was no exception to this reproach; for about the middle of last century, out of 14,934 children received into the London Foundling Hospital during a period of rather less than four years, only 4400 lived to be apprenticed to trades; and in that of Dublin the mortality during the six years ending 1797, was probably unparalleled by any other institution of the kind. The Foundling Hospital of London was founded in 1739; but it was soon discovered that the funds of the institution were quite inadequate for its support, so great was the influx of inmates; and in consequence of the enormous abuses to which the facility of admission rendered the system liable, it became necessary to modify the character of the institution, or rather to convert it into a kind of orphan asylum. In 1760 a total change was effected in its constitution by authority of the legislature, and it then ceased to be a receptacle for foundlings. No child whose mother does not personally appear, and who cannot satisfactorily answer the questions put to her, is received: if, however, the mother
can show that she had previously borne a good character, and that, owing to the desertion of the father, she is unable to maintain the child, it is admitted, but not otherwise.
The arguments for and against foundling hospitals are very nicely balanced, and the problem is one that is extremely difficult to solve. On the one hand it is undeniable that they render the crime of infanticide and abortion less frequent, and that in the majority of cases the children are better nursed and educated than they could be at home by bad parents and bad nurses; while, on the other hand, it is objected that such institutions powerfully contribute to the corruption of morals. It seems to be the prevailing opinion in this country, that the influence of these establishments has been on the whole more pernicious than beneficial; that they have rarely accomplished their object; but that instead of preventing crime, they scatter its seeds and spread its roots on all sides. (See McCulloch's Principles of Political Economy.)