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Title: The Child in Human Progress

Author: George Henry Payne

Author of introduction, etc.: A. Jacobi

Release date: January 9, 2019 [eBook #58656]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILD IN
HUMAN PROGRESS ***

MR. ELBRIDGE T. GERRY
FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO
CHILDREN

The Child
in
Human Progress
By
George Henry Payne

With a Foreword by
A. Jacobi, M.D., LL.D.

With 40 Illustrations

G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1916

Copyright, 1916
BY
GEORGE HENRY PAYNE

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

FOREWORD

T HIS is a new sort of book, and unique. That is why I look upon the
permission to write a brief preface for it as a rare privilege. Writings on
children are frequent. When, in 1875, I contributed, for Karl Gerhardt’s
immense Handbuch, my Hygiene of the Child, I quoted seven hundred
treatises or pamphlets on that subject. There are now at least seven thousand
of the kind, and the number of text-books on the diseases of children and
infants do no longer lead a pardonable, rarely a laudable, existence. A few
monographs on special subjects, or modern publications, as Erich Wulffen’s
The Child: His Nature and Degeneration (Berlin, 1913), or the two large
anthropological volumes by H. Ploss, The Child in the Customs and Morals
of Nations (third edition by B. Renz, 1911), are praiseworthy examples of
useful books. But while these are instructive they do not rouse historical
interest.
Indeed, the history of the child has been grossly neglected. The epoch-
making works of Rosenstein, Charles West, Rilliet and Barthez, and Karl
Gerhardt contain no history. The work of Puschmann (Neuberger and Pagel)
fills twenty pages with the history of the child in a text of three thousand
pages relating to the history of medicine. Altogether our country has been
disrespectful to its best possessions, viz., the children. There was until a few
decades ago not even a professional teaching of the children’s diseases in
our medical schools. A regular chair was established in 1860 (New York
Medical College),—it lasted for a few years only. The second was in 1898
(Harvard). There were few child’s hospitals or wards in hospitals until a few
years ago, even in the largest cities. Society, law, humanitarianism did not
mind children. It is only a few months that an official publication in our
democratic country carried the title; “Is There a Need of a Child Labour
Law?” and our civilization was humbled by medical discussion of the
advisability of killing the deformed or unpromising new-born. It seems to
take a long time before this republic of ours begins to work out of the ruts
of semi-barbarism. And now, at last, there is a book to supply our wants.
Laymen have advanced ahead of the medical profession. Christ and the
Stoics, the clergy and the public opinion of the Crusades and the Christian
sentiments of the Mediæval Church, aye, the great slaughterer and

revolutionary reformer, Napoleon, have called the children under their
protection and benefactions.
A vast amount of study relating to primary populaces and nations in gradual
development was required to learn the history of the child. Without the
history of the child there cannot be a scientific knowledge of the thousands
of years of child life. Nobody has given it until the author of this book
afforded us the wealth of his vast studies. This book furnishes what no other
work presents to us. I know of none which acquaints us with the position of
the child in his social, political, and humanitarian existence in all nations
and in all eras. Adults and adult life have long been served by the
endeavours of historians, philosophers, and psychologists. We do not
believe in completeness of our knowledge unless all that have been
perfected. Medical men do not believe in possessing a scientific grasp of
any of their subjects without an embryological basis. Statesmen, aye, even
politicians, of the better class, insist upon an ample knowledge of the
history of their countries, their institutions, and their laws. That is how the
last years of our medical and professional life in this country have
developed amongst us physicians the taste for history and such books as
Fielding Garrison has been able to prepare for us within the last year.
When I said the book before us was unique, I meant to say that it is a
special monograph of the life through thousands of years of slow physical,
domestic, economic, social existence of the child. No historian, no medical
practitioner or teacher, surely no existing pediatrist will be without it.
A. Jacobi.
New York City, December 21, 1915.

PREFACE

T HE introduction of Dr. Jacobi has saved the author from the onerous
task, ofttimes a graceless one, of writing extended prefatory remarks. It
was in the course of some researches into the origin of the Child
Protection movement in this country that I discovered how little attention
had been paid to the historical aspect of this important question. This book
represents really a process of elimination, behind which were many
fascinating byways, alluring blind alleys, and seeming countless beckoning
theories. Toward the last, for a person with human instinct writing on a
humane subject, it was hard not to tilt. In the main, however, the author
believes that he has hewed to the line.
The author is indebted for many courtesies to the officials of the New York
Public Library, likewise to the Congressional Library at Washington, the
British Museum at London, and the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. His
thanks are due also to Dr. C. C. Williamson, formerly Chief of the
Economics Division of the New York Public Library, who took a deep and
serious interest in the work; to Professor Richard Gottheil of Columbia, for
many helpful suggestions in connection with the Semitics studies; to
Professor Hiram Bingham of Yale, for some helpful notes on the Incas; to
Mr. A. S. Freidus, Chief of the Jewish Division of the New York Public
Library; to Professor Adolf Deissmann, of the University of Berlin; to Mr.
Elbridge T. Gerry, whose library provided a wealth of material; to the late
Thomas D. Walsh, Superintendent of the New York S. P. C. C., a
humanitarian of the first water; to Mr. Jesse B. Jackson, Mr. W. J. Yerby,
Mr. Charles H. Allbrecht, and Mr. E. A. Wakefield, all of the American
Consular Service; to Mr. J. William Davis, for supervision of the
Bibliography; to Mr. Gabriel Schlesinger, for assistance in reading the
proofs; and, above all, to Mr. Robert E. MacAlarney, of Columbia
University, to whose sustaining criticism and deep personal interest the
author owes more than can be here set down.
George Henry Payne.
Kingsbridge, New York
January, 1916

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
Maternal Affection the Beginning of Human Altruism—Sympathy and Parental
Love the Basis of Other Virtues—The Weakest Sacrificed in all Primitive
Society—Neglected Chapters in the History of the Attitude of Society toward
Children 1
CHAPTER II
Human Marriage—Evolution of the Parental Instinct—Social Conditions among
Papuans—Child’s Place in the Tribe 15
CHAPTER III
The Killing of Twins—Other Excuses for Infanticide—Restricting the Family—
Economic Reasons Acknowledged—Dying of Despair 31
CHAPTER IV
The Drowning of Daughters—Early Mongolian Civilization Marked by Ancestor
Worship—Severe Character x of Confucius—“Beginning” of Infanticide 200 b.c.
—Reforms of the Emperor Choentche and the Manchus in the Seventeenth
Century—Decrees Reducing the Cost of Wedding Gifts in Order to Stop
Parents from Killing Female Children 46
CHAPTER V
Death by Neglect and Sacrifice in Japan—The New-Born Taboo—Myth of the
Exposure of the Child of the Gods—Growth of the Marriage Custom—The
Arrival of the Chinese—Modern Cannibalism—Modern Laws on the Sale of
Children 71
CHAPTER VI
Mesopotamia the Earliest Civilization Known—Faint Traces of Child-Sacrifice—
Laws for Women and Children—Census Figures in Stones—Code of Hammurabi
—The Story of Sargon 90
CHAPTER VII
Most Ancient Nation was Kind to Children—Economic Pressure Brought No Special
Cruelty—Picture of the Proletariat—Abjurations of the Oldest Book in the
World—Egyptians as Seen by Diodorus Siculus—Degenerating Effect of Greek
Supremacy 106
CHAPTER VIII
Children in India—Story of the Mahabharata—Female Child Despised—A Hundred
Cows the Price of a Son—Records Left by Historians of Alexander’s Conquest
—Attempts by British Government to Check Infanticide—Work of Jonathan
Duncan and Col. Alexander Walker 120
CHAPTER IX
Semitic Development in Canaan—Sacrifice of the First-Born Persists—Origin of the 138
Idea of Sacrifice—The Custom World-wide among Primitive Peoples—

Associated with Cannibalism—The Foundation Sacrifice—Discoveries in
Palestine
CHAPTER X
Hebrew Writers on the Origin of the Religion of Humanity—Child Sacrifice
Condemned in the Story of Isaac—Circumcision Substituted—Reversion to
Barbaric Habits in Canaan—Triumph of the Prophets 157
CHAPTER XI
Ancient Arabians Were Cannibalistic—Daughters too Expensive to Rear—
Conditions before the Coming of the Prophet—The Injunctions of Mohammed—
His Law as Found in “Al Hidaya” 169
CHAPTER XII
Exposure by a Civilized People—Lack of Humanity among the Greeks—Their
Mythology an Evidence—Children in Homer 184
CHAPTER XIII
Female Children not Desirable among Greeks—Precautions for Saving Exposed
Children—Ornaments as a Means of Identification—Adoption under Strange
Circumstances 199
CHAPTER XIV
First Recognition of Rights of Children—Laws of Romulus and of Numa Pompilius—
The Twelve Tables—Attitude of Parents Shown in Terence—Patria Potestas
Sparingly Used 209
CHAPTER XV
Humanitarian Measures of Augustus—Life in the Imperial City—First Attempts of
the State to Check Infanticide—Trajan and the Veleia Loan—Stoic Spirit in
Pliny’s Charity 223
CHAPTER XVI
Reforms of Hadrian—Punishment of Fathers—Valerius Maximus—Favourite
Streets in Rome for Leaving Abandoned Children—Mutilating Children for
Profit 236
CHAPTER XVII
Progress under the Antonines—Faustina’s Efforts to Save Female Children—
Christian Sentiment Grows—Plea of Lactantius—Its Effects—Constantine 245
CHAPTER XVIII
Pleas of the Christian Fathers 257
CHAPTER XIX
Conditions among the Peoples who Conquered the Roman Empire—Irish Sacrificed
First-Born—The Wergeld—The Salic Law—Code of the Visigoths on Exposed
Children—Theodoric and Cassiodorus 272
CHAPTER XX
Growth of the Humanitarian Movement throughout Europe—In the Dark Ages—
Church Takes up the Humanitarian Work in the Seventh Century—Sale of
Children Common—Story of Saint Bathilde—Children Sold for Father’s Debts
—Datheus the First to Offer Children a Home—Appeal of Pope Innocent III. 287
CHAPTER XXI

Cruelty to Children in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century—Attempt at
Regulation—Deforming Children for Mountebank Purposes—Anecdote of xiv
Vincent de Paul—His Work and His Success 302
CHAPTER XXII
Rise of Factory System—The Child a Charge on the State—Children Actually
Slaves under Factory System—Reform of 1833—Oastler against the Child
Slavery—“Juvenile Labour in Factories is a National Blessing” 312
CHAPTER XXIII
Industrial Conditions in America—Protection for Animals—Founding of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children—Spread of the Movement
throughout the World—Origin in New York City 332
Appendix A—Napoleonic Decree of 1811 341
Appendix B—Certificate of Incorporation of the New York Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children 346
Appendix C—Treatment of Children 349
Index 361

ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry Frontispiece
Founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
Native East African Mother and Infant 17
(Courtesy of Museum of Natural History, New York)
A Well-Cared for Eskimo Infant 17
(Courtesy of Museum of Natural History, New York)
Family Life among Birds. Group of American Egret 20
(Courtesy of Museum of Natural History, New York)
A Family of Anthropoid Apes, from a Drawing by Dan Beard 24
(Courtesy of Museum of Natural History, New York)
Family of Polar Bears 24
(Courtesy of Museum of Natural History, New York)
Primitive Family Life among the Hopi Indians 28
(Courtesy of the Museum of Natural History, New York)
A Hindu Child-Mother, whose Cares will Make her Old at Thirty 42
Zulu Girl with Baby. The Practice of Exposure Ended among the Zulus only within
42
the Present Generation
Special Repository for Bodies of Neglected Babies, China 56
(Reproduced from “China in Decay”)
An Overburdened Chinese Child Carrying more than his Weight in Tea 69
(Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.)
“Little Mothers”—the One Five, the Other Eight, Years Old—China 69
Tsuchi-Ningio. Clay Figure Substituted for Human Sacrifice—Japan 80
(Reproduced from “Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society,” Volume
I)
Crock Containing Remains of Sacrificed Child. Unearthed at Tell Ta’Annek 80
(Reproduced from “Life in Ancient Egypt”)
A Pomeioc Chieftain’s Wife and Child 94
(From the Original Water-Colour Drawing in the British Museum by John White,
Governor of Virginia in 1587)
Eskimo Mother Carrying Infant in her Hood 94
(From the Original Water-Colour Drawing in the British Museum by John White,
Governor of Virginia in 1587)
Isis in the Papyrus Swamps, Suckling Horus 106
(Reproduced from “The Gods of the Egyptians, or Studies in Egyptian
Mythology”)

Group of M’ayptah, the Priest of Ptah, with his Family 110
(Reproduced from “Life in Ancient Egypt”)
Letter of Illarion, an Egyptian Labourer, to Alis, His Wife. Papyrus Written at
118
Alexandria, 17 June, 1 b.c.
(Reproduced from “Light from the Ancient East”)
Florida Women Sacrificing their First-Born Children 122
(From an Old Print)
The Incas Offering a Human Sacrifice to their Chief 144
(From “Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains,” by P. Lafitau, Paris, 1724)
American Savages Substituting an Animal for a Human Sacrifice 144
(From “Mœurs des Sauvages Amériquains,” by P. Lafitau, Paris, 1724)
Musical Instruments Found in a Child’s Grave, at Tell Ta’Annek 150
(Reproduced from “Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaft”)
Abraham and Isaac 158
(From a Painting by J. S. Copley, R. A.)
A Notable Case of Abandonment—the Finding of Moses 160
(After Painting by Schopin)
Blind Boys at Drill in “The Light House,” New York City 200
The Finding of Romulus and Remus 225
(From an Old Print)
Antoninus Pius, Consecrator of the World’s First Protective Foundation Benefit
236
for Girls
Constantine the Great, Emperor-Protector of the Roman Child 236
The Sacrificing of Living Infants to the God Moloch 238
“Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me” 258
(After Overbeck)
The Holy Family 272
(After Rubens)
(Reproduced by Permission of Museum of Art, New York)
Evening Recreation Centre for Boys, New York City 282
Meeting of an “Evening Centre,” New York City 282
Filling Christmas Baskets for Poor Children—Mothers’ Helping-Hand Club, New
297
York City
Saint Vincent de Paul, Founder of the First Permanent Asylum for Children in
298
France
A Healthy Pair of Indian Children, Western Canada 318
Infant Toilers in a Silk Mill, Syria 318
(Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.)
Children of Two Families—As the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
333
Children Found them
The Same Families—After Attention from the Society 333
Henry Bergh 336

The “Inspiration” of Henry Bergh on which the Society for the Prevention of
336
Cruelty to Children was Organized
The Juvenile Court, New York City; Justice Wyatt on the Bench 337

History of the Child

CHAPTER I
MATERNAL AFFECTION THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN ALTRUISM—SYMPATHY AND
PARENTAL LOVE THE BASIS OF OTHER VIRTUES—THE WEAKEST SACRIFICED
IN ALL PRIMITIVE SOCIETY—NEGLECTED CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF THE
ATTITUDE OF SOCIETY TOWARD CHILDREN.

I F it were possible to postulate the first definite concept of the first family
that crossed the vague and age-consuming frontier between animality
and humanity, it would be safe to say that this primitive and almost
animal mind would reach for an approximation, on the part of the male, to
the maternal affection.
In the gathering of food and the making of protective war, many animals are
the rivals in instinct and intelligence of primitive man. Continued
development in that regard might have produced a race of men “formidable
among animals through sheer force of sharp-wittedness,” but not homo
sapiens. In the passage from animality to humanity, there was not only
mental evolution, but moral, and the developing mind would naturally
exercise itself for days and years, and perhaps for long periods around that
one emotion—the love of the female for its young—an emotion he was
incapable of understanding, but the outward manifestations of which he
would be bound to imitate.
Whether man was led to an understanding of the maternal affections by the
“sensuous aspects of the newly-born progeny” appealing to man himself,1
or through pity and sympathy, as Spencer suggests, or still more through
imitation of the maternal delight, he undoubtedly would be led to a higher
mental plane as he slowly came to understand that the maternal affection
was not self-gratifying in the sense that marked the entire gamut of his own
emotions up to that time.
Even in recent times tribes have been found so low in the social scale that
coition and child-birth have been assumed to have no relation, the latter
phenomenon being explained by ascribing to certain trees the power to
make women fructile. In a society as low in mentality as this, it would be
easy to conceive that the woman’s unselfishness—her lack of the self-
gratifying impulse—in protecting, nursing, and rearing a burden
superimposed on her with no pleasurable antecedents, would be even more

amazing than it would be to the male living in a state sufficiently advanced
to understand the reproductive function.
In either state of society, there then begins in the human consciousness a
disturbance “which is significant of something having another value than
that of mere pleasure, and which is pregnant with the promise of another
than the merely sensuous or merely intellectual life.”2 The words quoted are
Prof. Ladd’s, discussing the philosophy of conduct of civilized man—but
here, even in the primitive man, the rule applies—the moral idea is born,
legitimately enough, out of the altruistic maternal affection.
Not infrequently one comes across such expressions as “when man became
civilized,” starting always the baffling inquiry—what civilized man? The
mystery of life, as Bergson suggests, may be its solution, for in the acquired
tendency of looking on the world as containing one emotion at least that
was not purely self-gratifying, man was preparing himself for the virtues
that followed in the wake of his own first altruistic concept. The loyalty
without which there could be no sociality has, on the one hand, a reasoned
basis—the selfish and protecting one that may also explain the
gregariousness of animals—but it differs from gregariousness by
subordinating to the good of another one’s own pleasure, just as the mother
subordinates her wishes to the pleasure and good of the infant. It is, in fact,
the developed emotion that the male acquires through imitation and
sympathy from the female, for, “when a tendency splits up in the course of
its development, each of the special tendencies which thus arise, tries to
preserve and develop everything in the primitive tendency that is not
incompatible with the work for which it is specialized.”3
Back of this sociological “leap” is Nature’s long preparation. “The stability
of animal marriage,” says Wundt,4 “seems in general to be proportional to
affection for the young,” and yet the primitive instincts are sometimes so
powerful that even among those animals in whom the maternal instinct is
strongly developed, they will, even after facing great danger for their
young, desert them when the time comes to migrate. This Darwin says is
true of swallows, house martins, and swifts.5
But even in the lowest animals the “chief source of altrusim” is the family
group as it revolves round the care of the young,6 while with the increase in
the representative capacity that differentiates man from the brute, and the

prolongation of the period of human infancy, there is born real altruism, the
germ of morality, through the “knitting together of permanent relations
between mother and infant, and the approximation toward steady relations
on the part of the male parent.”
How then does it happen that an instinct that has been productive of so
much for humanity, an instinct that has given birth to most of those virtues
that mark civilized from savage man,7 served apparently so little as a
safeguard for the offspring that generated the moral evolution? Studying the
cross currents and the ever-present struggle for existence of the various
nations that worked out of barbarism to civilization, we see that after all it is
by and through the very virtues, tenderness, sympathy, and humanity, that
were first aroused by the helpless offspring, that the infant comes in turn to
be protected, though the path is frequently a tortuous one.
The society that was able to exist in primitive times was always the one that
sacrificed the individual,8 and the infant was naturally low in the scale of
value. That very sacrifice of the weakest, stratified into a national
characteristic, produced in the greatest civilization of ancient times, a
narrow and egoistical morality, with little conception of what we call
humanity. “No Greek ever attained the sublimity of such a point of view,”
says George Henry Lewes.9
In this, the “century of the child,” there is a great conception of humanity,
and even of children’s rights. Little attempt, however, has been made to
trace in consecutive and co-ordinate fashion the development among races
and nations of the progress of the human race in its attitude toward children.
We who are so much interested in the betterment of the race and who are so
much moved by humanitarian considerations that almost the first
consideration of the state is to provide for the children, have reached this
point of view only after a long struggle against blind ignorance and reckless
selfishness.
The fact that less than fifty years have passed since we began a definite
policy concerning the rights of children shows how rapidly the human race
moves. The race may be, let us say, something like 240,000 years old; of
that time civilized man—accepting the most generous figures on Egyptian
and Mesopotamian civilization—has existed only 10,000 years, or 1/240 of
the life of the human species.

Humanized man has existed not more than a few hundred years, and it is
within only fifty years that the race has been concerned with the protection
of the child. How deeply ingrained are the habits of barbarity and darkness,
may be seen from the fact that cannibalism broke out in Japan not more
than a hundred years ago.
Unquestionably, this is the century of the child. Undoubtedly, more serious
thought is being given in the present generation to the subject than has ever
been given before in the entire history of the world. More has been written
about the child in the last fifty years than had been written in the world in
all civilized times up to the beginning of this half-century. In order to
appreciate this statement one must remember that the best friends of the
child—Jesus, the Jewish Prophets, and Mohammed—lived centuries before
the human theories that they preached had really a living existence.
In this connection, it is germane to state that the theory that philosophy and
religion go hand in hand with humanity, is shattered by the fact that Plato,
Aristotle, Confucius, and Gautama affected, apparently, not a single jot, the
ancient attitude of insufferance toward the undesired children.
There has ever been, on the question of his children, a struggle between
man and nature. Endowed with the possibilities of a large offspring man has
fought the burdens that nature has thrust upon him. On first view, it seems
that parental affection never develops to great degree unless the economic
conditions are favourable; yet the various artifices and “laws” used by tribes
to get rid of children would show that parental affection kept struggling
with the inclinations of men. In other words, if we find, as we do, female
children sacrificed in one place because they are useless, and all first-born
children sacrificed in another place because the gods must be propitiated, it
is evident that parental affection (as represented by the women) was strong
enough to force the male sovereigns to invent plausible excuses and taboos
in order to have the women give up their offspring.
Considering all that is being done, said, and written on the subject of the
child and the relation of the state and citizen toward the child, it would
seem safe to assume that there would be some interest in the attitude of our
predecessors toward children.
From the regulation of Romulus, as set forth by Dionysius Halicarnassus, to
the story of Mary Ellen, as set forth by a settlement worker on the East Side

of New York City, is a far cry, but the progress from the first to the second
is steady. The Roman General, Agathocles, who made as a part of the terms
of peace with the Carthaginians an agreement on the part of that branch of
the Semitic race that they would cease to sacrifice children, was a legitimate
sociological progenitor of the representative of the arm of the law that stops
a drunken father from beating his child and creates a Children’s Court
where the child gets gentleness with justice, not contamination and
corruption.

MARY ELLEN AND THE SCISSORS WITH WHICH SHE WAS BEATEN

“Every historian ought to be a jurist; every jurist ought to be a historian,”
says Ortolan, and the historian of child progress feels not only the truth of
that statement but the added necessity of meeting the various economic
theories that have dealt with the care of the child, from those of Lycurgus to
the latter-day essay of Malthus.
The law of primogeniture and the varying laws of inheritance have
occasionally led to the study of children as children, but generally the main
interest in them of historian and jurist has been as a channel for the
transmission of property.
Theories about population and the fascinating pursuit of unravelling tangled
economic laws, have obscured the fact that the attitude of a state toward

children has been, with few variations, an index to its social progress. The
same thing has been said of women, but while the Greeks treated women
well, yet with the exception of the single dema10 of Thebes, infanticide was
common in all the Greek States.
The Chinese are kind to their women and yet there is no country today
where infanticide is more common. The oldest civilization in the world, the
Babylonian, was not one in which women were ill-treated, yet all the
indications are that infanticide was practised in the shape of human
sacrifice.
The Rajputs of India pleaded for their privilege of destroying infant
children when theirs had been the highest civilization in the world.
In other words, disinterested affection for the infant is not necessarily
coincident with civilization, or the kind treatment of women a sure sign that
the lives of children are safe.
Various writers, including Walt Whitman, Nietzsche, and Edward
Carpenter, have taken the attitude that our much vaunted civilization does
not really represent progress, and one vivacious author11 has even
undertaken to show in a clever and lively way that there is no such thing as
progress, pointing to Greek civilization, in which children were killed at
will and public men were confessed degenerates, as the ideal from which
we of modern times have fallen away.
What is undoubtedly true is that civilization does not always indicate social
progress, and what is truer is that civilization does not necessarily indicate
the humanization of the people.
Chremes, the very character in Terence12 who says “Nothing human is alien
to me,” is the one who reproves his wife for not having gotten rid of their
child. The advance over Homer as shown by Virgil is that of a great
gentleness, a great humaneness,—a difference in their times,—and yet
Cicero, who represents the stoical and gentler sentiments of the Virgilian
times toward the helpless and powerless victims of force as did no man up
to his day, speaks tolerantly of the inhuman practices of his time. But there
is a growth of humaneness from Homer to Virgil, there is advance from
Plato to Cicero, humanely speaking of course; there was greater advance in
the teachings of Christ, and there was further advance in the course of the

long-drawn-out struggle between the nominal acceptance of those teachings
and their incorporation into the daily philosophy. So, too, progress in the
care of the rights of infancy and childhood has been made very little by
very little.
It is the fact that, until 1874, there was no organized movement to defend
the “rights” of children that led the author to investigate the conditions that
had existed previous to that time. The first Child’s Protective Movement
began in New York in the year mentioned, and the rapidity with which this
spread throughout the world indicated that some general law, or as Brinton
says, psychological process was at work. Today there are protecting
societies in every country where there are Caucasian peoples. To go to the
sources of the Child Protection Movement, it was necessary to understand
the industrial conditions which arose in the nineteenth century, the
eighteenth century, and the latter part of the seventeenth, when the boast
was made that children were at last being made useful.
Back of the misuse of children in factories is the interesting story of the rise
of modern industrialism with the early attempts of the guilds to protect
children, not so much out of any development of the human feelings as
from the guild’s desire to protect the male labourer from unfair competition.
The Decree of Napoleon in 1811,13 declaring that the unprotected infant
was a charge on the state, marked another advance in humanitarianism;
back of this advance was the long and interesting story of the endeavours of
the religious orders and the charitably disposed persons of the Middle Ages
to save the lives of children, the most conspicuous benefactor of childhood
being the noble St. Vincent de Paul. It was he who gave to the golden
glories of France’s golden age a touch of humanity that would otherwise
have been lacking in the epoch ruled over by Mazarin and later the Great
Louis.
Leading up to the efforts of St. Vincent de Paul was that complex and
interesting chapter of the mixing of the old German laws with the Roman
laws, as the barbarians found them.
That the semi-barbarous tribes that descended on Rome were better
qualified to take up the humane side of the Christian work than was the
decadent Roman, we can assume from the statement of Tacitus, that among

the Germans children were treated more kindly than they were by the then
ruling lords of the earth.
Satire there may have been, as Guizot and Voltaire suggest, in much that
Tacitus wrote about the superior morality of the Germans, but later history
demonstrated their ethical superiority over the nation that was then on the
verge of moral decay.
In any case, as the Christian religion spread among the tribes that had
enfiladed Rome, there are evidences of more humane consideration for
children until we find Bishop Datheus as early as 787 a. d. founding an
asylum for children in a spirit strangely in advance of his time, though the
bitter protests of the Christian fathers in the second century against the
slaughter and misuse of children put the mark of infamy on the persecutors
of children for all time.
The Roman laws, as the barbarians found them, were the result of a slow
growth of a thousand years from the time when the founder attempted to
check the slaughter of young children by what must have been, in those
primitive times, more or less drastic legislation. That the teachings of Christ
and the teachings of the Stoics led to the same result does not detract from
the credit due to Christianity for first putting on its proper basis, as we see
things now, the standing of the child in the matter of its rights.
Back of the Roman developments is the Greek attitude toward children,
disappointing, if we look for the perfection that we find in art and in
philosophy, doubly disappointing when we find that both Plato and Aristotle
saw the child only as a possibility—only as something of which we must
await developments—only as a human ovum.
When we come to trace the attitude of other races, of other civilizations,
toward children, we find much the same story: out of barbarism,
civilization; out of civilization, humanity, though it has been usually the
great Semitic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism—that
have awakened the humane instinct the world over. The humane teachings
of the Stoics were not unlike those of the great religious teachers, but,
lacking the intense driving power of religious fervour, it is doubtful if they
could have accomplished the revolutions that these three religions did.

That all the great nations, the historical divisions of the races, or those that
passed out of barbarism into civilization, carried with them some trace of
early cannibalistic days or child-murder days, seems a safe conclusion; and
while occasional followers and interpreters of the Malthusian philosophy
have at times attempted to defend indirectly these practices as part of the
checks and balances by which over-population is defeated, the fact remains
that the development of the parental instinct, the greatest of civilizing
forces, has slowly, but surely, tended to put an end to these “checking” and
“balancing” practices.

CHAPTER II
HUMAN MARRIAGE—EVOLUTION OF THE PARENTAL INSTINCT—SOCIAL
CONDITIONS AMONG PAPUANS—CHILD’S PLACE IN THE TRIBE.

I T is now believed by many scientists that the cradle of the human race
was the Indo-Malaysian intertropical lands.
The discovery of the remains of the Pithecanthropus erectus in 1892 by Dr.
Eugene Dubois in the pliocene beds of East Java, established as a strong
probability what was up to that time regarded as a mere speculation.
Keane14 and Sir John Evans15 now assert that man originated in the East in
this vicinity and migrated thence to Europe.
In this semi-glacial period, man, having taken on much of his human
character and being now an erect animal (although in physical and mental
respects he still resembled his nearest kin), had little difficulty in migrating.
During the immensely long old Stone Age to which Peroché assigns a
period of some three hundred thousand years since the beginning of the
Ghellian epoch, the pleistocene precursors underwent very few or slight
specializations or developments, a fact due mainly to the moderate and
unchanging character of the climate during this long period. Progress in the
arts, however, there was, to such an extent that in some things the period
has not been equalled. Of this character are the exquisitely wrought flints of
the Silurian period, which cannot be reproduced now.
Primitive man as he existed in the Stone Age had very little in common
with the “primitive men” of today. There are savages today who represent,
in a way, a degree of savagery and a remoteness from civilization that in
some respects takes them farther down the social ladder than any of the
Aryan race of the Stone Age. “No pure primitive race exists in any part of
the world today.”16 Contact with more advanced races has invariably
produced, sometimes a good and sometimes an evil effect. Races are what
climate, soil, diet, pursuits, and inherited character make them,17 and the
Aryan savages of the Stone Age had a different set of these conditions to
face from the Negro savages of today.

A WELL-CARED FOR ESKIMO INFANT
(COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

NATIVE EAST AFRICAN MOTHER AND INFANT
(COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

It is not surprising to find today a race that in many respects represents the
Stone Age period of civilization, displaying, together with the most
barbarous customs, a wide knowledge of the arts, indicating that there had
been contact with some higher race or its representatives.
Tribes grade into one another in the matter of culture so that it is hard to
classify them.18 A struggle for existence may leave its mark on an advanced
tribe so that while it may in general retain prominent barbaric or primitive
characteristics, it will, in every other regard but these, seem an advanced
tribe. The Nigritans, for instance,19 have learned from their neighbours, the
Abyssinians and the Arabs, the use of iron; yet they have not arrived at the
Stone and Bronze ages in culture, and show in their social relations and
domestic habits none of the characteristics of the more advanced tribes.
So in the treatment of children. Wherever the treatment of the child is at
variance with the other customs or conditions of the race, it will almost
invariably be discovered that the change is due to economic reasons or to
contact with a stronger race. That it is this contact with higher races that has
helped undeveloped races to advance, is the opinion of Sir H. H. Johnson.20
“In some respects I think the tendency of the Negro for several centuries
past has been an actual retrograde one. As we come to read the unwritten
history of Africa by researches into languages, manners, customs, traditions,
we seem to see a backward rather than a forward movement going on for
some thousand years past—a return towards the savage and even the brute.
I can believe it possible that, had Africa been more isolated from contact
with the rest of the world, and cut off from the immigration of the Arab and
the European, the purely Negroid races, left to themselves, so far from
advancing towards a higher type of humanity, might have actually reverted
by degrees to a type no longer human.”
On the other hand, G. Stanley Hall says that our intercourse with the
African races “had been a curse and not a blessing. Our own Indians are
men of the Stone Age whom Bishop Whipple thought originally the noblest
men on earth. Look at them now!”21
Up to a short time ago men of authority asserted that marriage had sprung
up from a “state of promiscuity,” the believers in this theory forgetting that

even “among animals the most akin to man, this state of promiscuity is
rather exceptional.”
Most of the people cited as following this practice have been shown to have
individual marriage to the exclusion of other forms. Undoubtedly in many
cases what are called group marriages have been mistaken for promiscuity.
Almost equally low in the social scale is polyandry, where one woman may
have several husbands.
Whatever the origin of marriage, the fact is, however, that the idea of
marriage comes after the idea of the child—as in the animal world, the
family is established for the purpose of taking care of the children that have
been brought into the world.22
In Mahabharata, the Indian poem, we are told that marriage was founded
by Swetaketu, son of the Rishi Uddalaka; according to the Chinese annals,
the Emperor Fou-hi established the custom; the Egyptians ascribed its
introduction to Menes, and the Greeks to Kekrops. Nowhere is it assumed
as a condition of the race of all time. Its origin, growth, and development
are really the origin, growth, and development of the idea of protecting
human offspring.
A convincing scientific explanation of marriage, however, has been set forth
by Westermarck.23 Among the great sub-kingdom of the Invertebrata not
even the female parent exhibits any anxiety about the offspring. The heat of
the sun hatches the eggs of the highest order, the insects, and in most cases
the mother does not even see her young.24
Parental care is rare among the lowest vertebrata. Among fishes the young
are generally hatched without the assistance of the parents. There are
exceptions to this among the Teleostei, where the male assumes the usual
maternal functions of constructing a nest and jealously guarding the ova
deposited there by the female. The male of certain species of the Arius,
carries the ova in his pharynx. Nearly all of the reptiles, having placed their
eggs in a convenient sunny spot, pay no more attention to them.
With few exceptions, the relations of the sexes of the lower vertebrata can
be described as fickle; they meet in the pairing time, part again, and have
little more to do with one another.

“The Chelonia form,” says Westermarck, “with regard to their domestic
habits, transition to the birds, as they do also from a zoölogical and
particularly from an embryological point of view.” He then goes on to show
that parental affection in the latter class, not only on the side of the mother
but on that of the father, has come to high development. Members of the
two sexes aid each other in nest-building, the females bringing the materials
and the males doing the work. Other duties which come with the mating
season are shared by both, the mother being concerned with incubation and
the father aiding her by taking her position when she leaves the nest for
intervals, providing her with food which he gathers, and protecting her from
dangers. When the breeding season is over and the young have come, a new
set of duties is evolved. Young birds are not left alone by their parents,
absences being necessitated only by searches for food for all members of
the nest. When dangers threaten the nest both father and mother defend it
bravely.

FAMILY LIFE AMONG BIRDS. GROUP OF AMERICAN EGRET (COURTESY
OF MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

All efforts are made to have the young shift for themselves as soon as they
have grown strong enough to make it feasible. Independence and self-
dependence come only after they are in all ways capable of meeting their
needs.

On the other hand, there are some species whose young, from the beginning
of their ultra-oval existence, require and receive no care from the parents.
The duck is one of a species which leaves all parental care to the female. In
general it may be said that both parents share the parental duties, the chief
duties, such as hatching and rearing of the young, falling to the mother,
while the father gathers food and keeps off enemies.25
The relations of the two sexes are, therefore, very intimate, and association
lasts even after the breeding season has passed. And only the birds of the
Gallinaceous family are an exception to the rule of making such association
permanent once it has been started, death alone ending it.
Real marriage is to be found only among birds.26 For mammals the same
cannot be said, for though the mother generally gives much attention to the
young, the father does not always have as much concern. He even, in some
cases, is the enemy of his own offspring. Yet even in the cases of mammals
there are durable associations between the sexes. Very often these last only
during the rutting season, but among whales, seals, hippopotami, the Cervus
campestris,27 gazelles,28 the Neotragus Hemprichii and other small
antelopes, reindeer, the Hydromus coypus, squirrels, moles, the ichneumon,
and certain carnivorous animals, among the latter cats, martens, the
yaguarundi of South America, and the Canis Brasiliensis and perhaps the
wolf, there are durable matings. Association between the sexes is common
among all of these animals for periods after the young have been born. And
in all cases the male is the family’s protector.
What is an exception among the lower mammals is, however, a rule among
the Quadrumana. According to the natives of Madagascar some species of
Prosimii are nursed by both male and female in common. Among the
Arctopitheci the female is always assisted by the male in taking care of the
young.
Coming to the man-like apes, we are told by Lieutenant de Crespigny that
“in the northern part of Borneo they live in families—the male, female, and
young one. On one occasion,” he says, “I found a family in which were two
young ones, one of them much larger than the other, and I took this as a
proof that the family tie had existed for at least two seasons. They build
commodious nests in the trees which form their feeding-ground, and, so far
as I could observe, the nests, which are well lined with dry leaves, are

occupied only by the female and young, the male passing the night in the
fork of the same or another tree in the vicinity. The nests are very numerous
all over the forest, for they are not occupied above a few nights, the mias
(or orang-utan) leading a roving life.”
Dr. Savage says that the gorillas live in bands and that but one male is seen
in every band. M. du Chaillu says that the male gorilla is always
accompanied by the female.
It is among the Negritians of Africa that we find today the at-hand evidence
of the attitude of man toward his progeny in the first stages of culture, or
perhaps the last stages of savagery. It must be remembered that in Africa,
however, habits of other races will be found grafted on the negro stock,
thereby causing them to appear sometimes unusually gentle or again
unusually advanced. In Africa the Semitic and the Hamitic grafts on negro
stock provide many varieties of mankind, just as in Oceania, the Mongol
(Malay) and the Caucasian (Indonesian) grafts on the negro stock have
produced many varieties there. As an example of the methods of the lowest
of savage tribes, there is, however, no better example than the Papuans of
New Guinea of whom the ethnologist, Keane, says: “They stand in some
respects on the lowest rung of the social ladder.”
As an example of the low state of culture in which part of them exist it is
said that those near Astrolabe Bay on the north-west coast of New Guinea
had no knowledge of the metals, all their implements being of stone, wood,
or bones; neither had they knowledge of fire, the grandfathers of the present
generation being able to recall the time when they had no fire at all, but ate
their food raw. In the study of these people we are studying contemporaries
of our own neolithic ancestors.
According to their most popular myth, a crocodile named Nugu was
responsible for the frequent disappearance of children until the tribe made
an agreement to supply him with pig’s fat instead. Here we have the
beginning of the theory of sacrifice.

A FAMILY OF ANTHROPOID APES. FROM A DRAWING BY DAN BEARD.
(COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

FAMILY OF POLAR BEARS (COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF NATURAL
HISTORY. NEW YORK CITY)

“In their treatment of children they are often violent and cruel,” says Alfred
Russell Wallace,29 and an example of their idea of kindness may be
gathered from the following description of the “ornamentation” of a young
Papuan:
“The faces of both men and women are frequently ornamented all over with
cicatrices either circular or chevron-shaped. The operation is a painful and
costly one, as the professional tattooer has to be highly paid for his trouble,
and not every child’s friends can afford the fee demanded. The instrument
used is the claw of the flying-fox. The unfortunate patient is not allowed to
sleep for two or three nights before the operation is performed, and then,
when he is ready to drop from weariness, the tattooer begins his work, and
completes it at one sitting. I never saw the actual process, but a child was
brought for my inspection whose face had just been finished off. It was in a
painful state of nervous irritation, and the face swelled to an enormous
size.”30
Of the condition of these people no one is better able to speak than
Lieutenant Governor J. H. P. Murray,31 who describes tribes where the
savages have only weapons of wood, know nothing of the bow and arrow,
and are noted for their immorality.
“It is very often the case that the best of the young girls are sold by their
parents as courtesans, the native name being Jelibo. I came across men
married, and possessing, in addition, these women. Young fellows, not
having reached puberty, had clubbed together in parties of three and four,
and bought young girls from the parents to make courtesans. At feasts, these
girls are used for the purpose of enriching themselves and their owners.”32
As to the attitude of the children, we gain some idea of the aboriginal point
of view by this statement:
“There are some villages in which children absolutely swarm, but there are
few large families; practically every one is married, but there are many
couples who have no children, or only one or two. In many parts of the
territory it is considered a disgrace for a woman to have a child until she has
been married at least two years; infanticide and abortion, though rarely
proved, are said to be common, and a medical expert would probably
discover the existence of other checks to population. The result of all this is

that in some districts the population is increasing while in others it is not;
such investigations as we have been able to make lead, in the absence of
definite statistics, to the conclusion that the population in that part of the
territory which is under control is certainly not diminishing, though the
increase, if any, is probably very small. The reason why the population does
not increase as one would expect now that village warfare has ceased is, as
far as I can see, simply that neither men nor women want children, which I
take to be the chief cause that limits population elsewhere. The reason why
they do not want them is, I think, partly because they find them a nuisance
(which is a consideration that was probably effective even before the white
man came) and partly that, in their present state of transition from one stage
of development to another, they do not exactly see what there will be for
their children to do.”
Another custom of these people is to bury children alive, when the parents
or some person of importance dies; the excuse given for this practice is that
the child will be needed to wait on the parent in the other world, a practice
that lasted long among the civilized Egyptians.
Cannibalism is rife among these people. Mr. Murray reports that on one
occasion a young man was brought before him for having murdered a man
in order to please a married woman with whom he was in love—a lover
who has not “killed his man” being considered lukewarm.
“On my remonstrating with him on the impropriety of paying attention to a
married woman he informed me that there were no girls in the village, as
they had all been killed and eaten in a recent raid. The position of a young
man who found himself in a village where all the women were either
married or eaten was no doubt a difficult one, and I hope that I took it into
consideration in passing sentence.”33
How little is the feeling among these people over the murder of children, is
shown from the fact that murder is the only outlet for their feelings!
“I have known cases where a man, grieving over the loss of a relative or
over some slight that has been put upon him, has set fire to his house, quite
regardless of whether any one was inside, with the result, occasionally, that
a child is burnt to death, and I recently tried a case of murder which was the
direct outcome of grief over the death of a pig. The prisoners were brothers,
and their pig bore the pretty name of Mehboma; but Mehboma died, and the

brothers in their unquenchable grief went forth and killed the first man they
saw. The victim had nothing to do with Mehboma’s death, but the mourning
brothers did not care for that—somebody had got to be killed over it. The
prisoners told me that it was the custom of the village to show their grief in
this way, so that their neighbours must occasionally have suffered rather
severely.”34
As the Australians are closely allied to the Papuans and represent about the
same period of culture, we may postulate their attitude toward woman and a
marriage from the description of an early Victorian tribe-marriage given by
Brough Smith and quoted by A. H. Keane, the latter author remarking that
“a common test of a people’s culture is the treatment of their women, and in
this respect the Australians must, as Prof. R. Semon shows, be ranked
below the Bushman and on a level with the Fuegians.”

PRIMITIVE FAMILY LIFE AMONG THE HOPI INDIANS (COURTESY OF
THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)

“A man having a daughter of thirteen or fourteen years of age,” says Mr.
Smith in his description of the marriage customs in vogue among the
Victorian tribes, “arranges with some elderly person for the disposal of her;
and, when all are agreed, she is brought out and told that her husband wants
her. Perhaps she has never seen him but to loathe him. The father carries a

spear and a waddy, or tomahawk, and, anticipating resistance, is thus
prepared for it. The poor girl, sobbing and sighing, and muttering words of
complaint, claims pity from those who will show none. If she resists the
mandates of her father, he strikes her with his spear; if she rebels and
screams, the blows are repeated; and if she attempts to run away, a stroke
on the head from the waddy or tomahawk quiets her. The mother screams
and scolds and beats the ground with her kan-nan (fighting-stick); the dogs
bark and whine; but nothing interrupts the father, who, in the performance
of his duty, is strict and mindful of the necessity of not only enforcing his
authority, but of showing to all that he has the means to enforce it. Seizing
the bride by her long hair he drags her to the home prepared for her by her
new owner. Further resistance often subjects her to brutal treatment. If she
attempts to abscond, the bridegroom does not hesitate to strike her savagely
on the head with his waddy, and the bridal screams and yells make the night
hideous.”35

CHAPTER III
THE KILLING OF TWINS—OTHER EXCUSES FOR INFANTICIDE—RESTRICTING THE
FAMILY—ECONOMIC REASONS ACKNOWLEDGED—DYING OF DESPAIR.

I T has seemed necessary to dwell thus at length on the conditions among
the Papuans and allied tribes as it appeared to me important that the very
beginnings of the family should be understood. The general agreement of
ethnologists as to the low standing of the Papuans justifies, I believe, our
assuming them to be as near the point of culture of our neolithic (or
paleolithic) ancestors as it is possible to come.
From now on the course is upward. Strange as it may seem, the lowest
tribes are less “human,” both in the matter of offspring and in the matter of
sentiment of love for women, than some of the beasts and birds,36 but
having touched that depth, the next step brings us in contact with feelings
that, in a way, begin to approximate our own.
In the stages above the Papuans there is some affection for the woman; her
position is nearer to that of wife and less that of captive. In consequence
there is a more kindly regard for the children that she bears. Now begins the
development of the parental affection. It is, however, confined to the female
at first; “to this fact, rather than to doubt of paternity, should we attribute
the very common habit in such communities of reckoning ancestry in the
female line only.”37
Man, no longer relying on his own cannibalistic brute force to do with his
progeny as he wishes, invents reasons for doing away with his burdensome
offspring.
We have already seen that the Papuans restricted their families to two
children, when it was possible. As late as the middle of the seventeenth
century, Dapper reported that in Benin no twins were found, as it was
regarded as a sign of dishonour for a woman to have twins.38
Among the Arunta tribes in Central Australia, twins are “immediately killed
as something which is unnatural.”39 Among northern tribes they “are
usually destroyed as something uncanny.”40 With the Kaffirs, it was found
that “when twins are born, one is usually neglected and allowed to die.”41

Of the western Victorian tribes we learn that “twins are as common among
them as among Europeans; but as food is occasionally very scarce and a
large family troublesome to move about, it is lawful and customary to
destroy the weaker twin child, irrespective of sex.”42
In some parts of the Benin territory, according to a contemporary of Dapper,
the twin-bearing women are treated very badly.
According to Nyendael, they actually kill both mother and infants, and
sacrifice them to a certain devil, which they fondly imagine harbours in a
wood near the village. “But if,” says this authority, “the man happens to be
more than ordinarily tender, he generally buys off his wife, by sacrificing a
female slave in her place; but the children are without possibility of
redemption obliged to be made the satisfactory offerings which this savage
law requires. In the year 1699, a merchant’s wife, commonly called ellaroe
or mof, lay-in of two children, and her husband redeemed her with a slave,
but sacrificed his children. After which I had frequent opportunities of
seeing and talking with the disconsolate mother, who never could see an
infant without a very melancholy reflection on the fate of her own, which
always extorted briny tears from her. The following year the like event
happened to a priest’s wife. She was delivered of two children, which, with
a slave, instead of his wife, he was obliged to kill and sacrifice with his own
hands, by reason of his sacerdotal function; and exactly one year after, as
though it had been a punishment inflicted from heaven, the same woman
was the second time delivered of two children, but how the priest managed
himself on this occasion I have not been informed, but am apt to think that
this poor woman was forced to atone for her fertility by death. These dismal
events have in process of time made such impressions on men, that when
the time of their wives’ delivery approaches, they send them to another
country; which makes me believe that for the future they will correct these
inhumanities.”43
On the west coast of Africa “twins are killed among all the Niger Delta
tribes, and in districts out of English control the mother is killed too,”44
which shows the fanatic point to which a belief, or rather an excuse,
founded on the economic desire to keep down the size of a family, may be
carried.

All Kaffir children are neglected, according to Kidd,45 but on the birth of
twins, “one frequently is killed by the father, for the natives think that
unless the father places a lump of earth in the mouth of one of the babies, he
will lose his strength.”
The next provision to keep down the “cost of living” is directed against
children with blemishes, a practice that was not easy to check even among
civilized peoples. Among the Australian aborigines “it is usual to destroy
those that are malformed.”46 Among certain tribes on the west coast,
children whose mothers have died are thrown into the bush, “as are all
children who have not arrived in this world in the way considered orthodox
or who cut their teeth in an improper way.” A child born with teeth is put to
death, in some parts of Africa; children born in stormy weather are
destroyed in Kamchatka.47 In Madagascar “the superstition of lucky and
unlucky days prevailed throughout all the tribes, and the unfortunate infants
that came into the world on one of these unlucky days were immediately
destroyed.”48
How obvious are the so-called reasons for killing the children may be seen
from the fact that according to another authority, the proscribed or unlucky
periods and days include all children born in March and April, or in the last
week of each month, or on Wednesdays and Fridays.49 Among the
Antankarana tribes of the Amber Mountains in Madagascar, a child that
sneezes at or shortly after its birth is exposed. Among the Basuto, when a
child is born with its feet first, it is killed,50 whereas among the Bondei it is
killed if it is born head first.51
Among the Bondei, the excuses found for killing children are many. If the
child is born head first, it is a kigego (unlucky child) and is strangled; if it
cries, it is a kigego and is strangled. If the father has not been in the galo
(kekutoigwa), or the mother has not been in the kiwanga (kekuviniwa)
(initiated), the child is a tumbwi (offence) and is strangled.”52
Mental processes the world over are much the same. The American
legislator raising the tariff to keep out competitors is not employing a
system entirely dissimilar from that of the barbarians who, finding the first
proscriptions fail to keep down the birthrate, widen the scope of the
proscription. And so the customary law grows to include female children

among the proscribed. Writing in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
Don Felix de Azara declared he had found that among the Guanas in South
America it was the custom for the women to bury alive the majority of the
female children, and that they never brought up more than one boy and one
girl.53
Rude attempts to regulate the number of children next appeared. It has been
suggested that this phase of primitive development argues mentality
sufficient to foresee destruction of the tribe that does not provide for the
future. Doubtless, in the mind of some savage Malthus, the idea that the
tribe must allow at least a given number of children to live, was conceived
with the warm glow of discovery.
Among the Tokelaus, or Line Islanders, “no married pair are allowed by
their law to have or bear more than four children; that is, only four get the
chance of life. The woman has a right to rear, or endeavour to rear, one
child. It rests with the husband to decide how many more shall live, and this
depends on how much land there is to divide.”54
On Radack Island a woman “is allowed to bring up only three children; her
fourth and every succeeding one she is obliged to bury alive herself.”55
Two boys and one girl were all that the Australian mother brought up,
according to Curr, although the women bore an average of six children.56
Economic ingenuity—and trepidity—could go no further than the practice
in the Solomon Islands, where “a small portion of the Ugi natives have been
born on the island, three-fourths of them having been brought as youths to
supply the place of offspring killed in infancy. When a man needs support
in his declining years, his props are not his own sons, but youths obtained
by purchases from the St. Christoval natives.”57 Another author says of the
same islands that when “it becomes necessary to buy other children from
other tribes good care is taken not to buy them too young.”58
At Vaitupu, of the Ellice Islands, “only two children are allowed to a family,
as they are afraid of a scarcity of food.”59 It is on these coral islands that
Robert Louis Stevenson says the fear of famine is greatest. He bears out the
statement that only two children were allowed to a marriage on Vaitupu
Island, and adds that on Nukufetu only one child was permitted; “on the

latter the punishment was by fine, and it is related that the fine was
sometimes paid and the child spared.”60
In the Dieyerie tribe, of Australia, “thirty per cent. are murdered by their
mothers at their birth, simply for the reasons—firstly, that many of them,
marrying very young, their first-born is considered immature and not worth
preserving; and secondly, because they do not wish to be at the trouble of
rearing them, especially if weakly. Indeed all sickly and deformed children
are made away with in fear of their becoming a burthen to the tribe.”61
With the coming of ritual, man assumes to pacify his voracious deities by
the sacrifices of children, thereby propitiating the gods and reducing the
economic burden. The people of the Senjero offer up their “first-born sons
as sacrifices, because, once upon a time, when summer and winter were
jumbled together in bad season, and the fruits of the field would not ripen,
the sooth-sayers enjoined it.”62
After telling an almost unprintable tale, Dr. Brinton says of the Australian
blacks that “among several tribes it was an established custom for a mother
to kill and eat her first child, as it was believed to strengthen her for later
births.
“In the Luritcha tribe, young children are sometimes killed and eaten, and it
is not an infrequent custom, when a child is in weak health, to kill a
younger and healthy one and then to feed the weakling on its flesh, the idea
being that this will give to the weak child the strength of the stronger
one.”63
Frank admission that the children are in the way and are a burden, may be
regarded either as a sign that the tribe has progressed, or that it has not yet
reached the point of shame where it cloaks the evil practice under the guise
of religious sacrifices, hygienic or customary regulations.
In this regard it is not possible to say that the father, as opposed to the
mother, is more inclined to do away with offspring, or is more frequently
entrusted with that grewsome duty, although I would venture to say that an
exhaustive research on this one aspect of the study would probably show
that the mother at first opposed and gradually accepted, under the force of
man’s will, the idea that the destruction of her offspring was good; first for
herself and her lord and master, and secondly for the tribe.

Should investigation uphold such an hypothesis, it would be easily
understood how the frank acknowledgment represented an advanced stage,
when the woman, no longer satisfied with the various trivial excuses offered
for the destruction of her young, insisted on keeping them alive, and was
met with, not the many invented reasons that we have seen, but the plain
truth, that their continued existence endangered the food supply.
“Urgent want and sterility of the niggardly earth” were the reasons given by
the natives of the island of Radnack for the law limiting the number of
children.64 A second child is killed among the natives of Central Australia
“only when the mother is, or thinks she is, unable to rear it”65 and yet the
same authors say that “an Australian native never looks far enough ahead to
consider what will be the effect on the food supply in future years, if he
allows a particular child to live; what affects him is simply the question of
how it will interfere with the work of his wife so far as their own camp is
concerned; while, from the woman’s side, the question is, can she provide
food enough for the new-born infant and the next youngest?”66
The long suckling time, that these authors and other travellers have noted,
and that is here given as a reason, as opposed to the economic one, for the
frequent killing of children, is due “chiefly to want of soft food and animal
milk”.67
Among the members of the Areoi society, a peculiar and somewhat “secret”
society68 of the islands of the Pacific, “a man with three or four children,
and this was a rare occurrence, was said to be a taata taubuubuu, a man
with an unwieldy or cumbrous burden; and there is reason to believe that,
simply to avoid the trifling care and effort necessary to provide for their
offspring during the helpless period of infancy and childhood, multitudes
were consigned to an untimely grave.” A Malthusian motive has sometimes
been adduced, and the natives have been heard to say, that if all the children
born were allowed to live, there would not be food enough produced in the
islands to support them.69
From many authorities comes direct evidence of a clash between the man
and the woman in the Polynesian Islands. “As the burden of the plantation
and other work devolves on the woman, she thinks that she cannot attend to
more than two or three children, and the rest must be buried as soon as they
are born. There are exceptions to this want of maternal affection. At times

the husband urges the thing contrary to the wishes of the wife. If he thinks
the infant will interfere with her work, he forcibly takes the little innocent
and buries it, and she, poor woman, cries for months after her child.”70
Among the nomadic tribes it is frankly admitted that the children are a
hindrance. The Lenguas, of the Paraguayan Chaco, make journeys of from
ten to twenty miles, the women doing most of the hard work. The
consequence is that children are not desirable. So with the Abipones, of
whom Charlevoix says: “They seldom rear but one child of each sex,
murdering the rest as fast as they come into the world, till the eldest are
strong enough to walk alone. They think to justify this cruelty by saying
that, as they are almost constantly travelling from one place to another, it is
impossible for them to take care of more infants than two at a time; one to
be carried by the father, and the other by the mother.”71

ZULU GIRL WITH BABY. THE PRACTICE OF EXPOSURE
ENDED AMONG THE ZULUS ONLY WITHIN THE
PRESENT GENERATION

A HINDU CHILD-MOTHER, WHOSE CARES WILL MAKE HER OLD AT THIRTY

The explanation offered by the Kurnai was that “it was often difficult to
carry about young children, particularly where there were several. Their
wandering life rendered this very difficult.”72 In the struggle with nature,
man descends as well as ascends. The unfavourable conditions into which
nomadic tribes frequently come produce not infrequently, a perverted type
that is lower than the animals to which our semi-human progenitors of the
extremely remote past belonged. “The instincts of the lower animals,” says
Darwin, “are never so perverted as to lead them to regularly destroy their
own offspring or to be quite devoid of jealousy.”73
In parts of New South Wales, such as Bathurst, Goulburn, and the Lachlan,
or Macquarie, “it was customary long ago for the first-born of every lubra
to be eaten by the tribe, as part of a religious ceremony; and I recollect,”
says J. M. Davis, “a black fellow who had, in compliance with the custom,
been thrown when an infant on the fire, but was rescued and brought up by
some stock-keepers who happened accidentally to be passing at the time.”74
Ellis declares that among the Marquesans who inhabit a group of islands to
the south-east of Hawaii, children are sometimes, during “seasons of
extreme scarcity, killed and eaten by their parents to satisfy hunger.”75
It has been said that the social, moral, and intellectual condition of woman
indicates, in an ascending scale, the degree of civilization of every tribe and

nation. It might with equal force be said that the attitude of the tribe or
nation toward its young is also a barometer of progress. Behind the harsh
measure and savage customs, underneath the cruelty and at times ferocious
indifference to pain, there is in general among the lowest of the tribes an
affection for their young, once it has been decided that they are allowed to
live.
In that too frequently suppressed affection, stunted as it is by customary law
and the unequal struggle with nature, there is the beginning of humanitarian
progress. Given reasonable security that there will be a sufficiency of food
supply and a surcease of neighbourhood wars, this affection will pass from
precept to concept and protect even the unborn.76
“No people in the world are so fond of, or so long-suffering with, children,”
Stevenson says of the same South Sea Islanders among whom he has just
said infanticide is common.77 But even after it has been decided to bring up
the child, and it has become an object of great affection, it is still in danger
should famine conditions seem imminent,78 or should the cupidity and
avarice of the parents be aroused, with the consequence that children are
readily sold into slavery.79
Nature’s methods are stern, and her progress slow; despite perplexing
examples of reactionary forces, the primitive move is steadily toward an
understanding of one’s duties as a human being—or he dies. For the
civilized man, pain is nature’s warning that he has violated the rules of his
own body, and for the primitive man, decay and despair are the warnings
that the path of progress lies the other way.
Looking over this vast field, including not only blacks, Mongols, and
Indians, but even the Europeans, as we shall come to see later, we gather
that those that have struggled upward have been only those who have taken
nature’s lesson of lessons to themselves. Horrible as is the story of these
stationary and degenerate peoples that we get, what must be the whole
story, with its full picture of anguish?

CHAPTER IV
THE DROWNING OF DAUGHTERS—EARLY MONGOLIAN CIVILIZATION MARKED BY
ANCESTOR WORSHIP—SEVERE CHARACTER OF CONFUCIUS—“BEGINNING” OF
INFANTICIDE, 200 B. C.—REFORMS OF THE EMPEROR CHOENTCHE AND THE
MANCHUS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—DECREES REDUCING THE COST
OF WEDDING GIFTS IN ORDER TO STOP PARENTS FROM KILLING FEMALE
CHILDREN.

A SSUMING that the human cradle was in the Eastern Archipelago, and
more particularly in the Island of Java where Dr. Dubois discovered
his Pithecanthropus erectus, the primeval home of the Mongolian
division of the human race was the Tibetan plateau. From this central
plateau the early Mongol groups spread during the Stone Age over the
Asiatic continent, in one place developing into the Akkado-Sumerians of
Babylonia, the almost extinct Hyperboreans of Siberia in another, the
Mongolo-Tartars stretching across Central Asia from Japan to Europe, the
Tibeto-Indo-Chinese of Tibet, Indo-China, and China, and the Oceanic
Mongols of Malaysia, Madagascar, and the Philippines.
In Tibet even today, polyandrous customs are still strong and the nomadic
tendencies of the people show that the years of civilization or near-
civilization have not changed the primitive roving inclinations, inclinations
that partly account for the indifference to child life among the Chinese.
Our knowledge of ancient China rests principally on two authorities, the
Chou King of Confucius, written 484 b. c., and the Sse Ki of Tsse Ma
Thsein, written at the beginning of the first era before Christ. Confucius
was not able to go further back than seventeen centuries before his own
time, so that we can safely say that we know something about Chinese
history for about 2200 years before the Christian era. The social and
political life of the Chinese people in the time of Yao, the first of the
emperors named by Confucius, was that of a pastoral people, but even then
most of the useful arts had been invented, writing was already known, and
the first notions of astronomy on which they founded their calendar had
been acquired. The successor of Yao was Chun, and after Chun came Hia,
the founder of a dynasty which lasted from 2205 to 1767 b. c., with which
dynasty began the real history of China.

When Confucius appeared the Chinese Empire was a highly civilized
nation, but of Confucius it has been said that he, more than any other one
man, went to make China a nation. Born at a time when his country was
torn with discord and desolated by war, husbandry neglected, peace of
households destroyed, and plunder and rapine common occurrences,
Confucius was nineteen when he married and added to the national woes
his own domestic troubles, divorcing the lady after a brief period in
captivity, but not however until she had borne him a son.
It is through this son that we learn something of the personal character of
Confucius. An inquisitive disciple asked the son if he had learned any more
than those who were not related to the great teacher.
“No,” replied Le. “He was standing alone once when I was passing through
the court below with hasty steps, and said to me:
“‘Have you read the Odes?’
“On my replying, ‘Not yet,’ he added:
“‘If you do not learn the Odes, you will not be fit to converse with.’
“Another day in the same way and the same place, he said to me:
“‘Have you read the rules of Propriety?’
“On my replying ‘Not yet,’ he added:
“‘If you do not learn the rules of Propriety, your character cannot be
established.’”
“I asked one thing,” said the enthusiastic disciple, “and I have learned three
things. I have learned about the Odes, I have learned about the rules of
Propriety, and I have learned that the Superior Man maintains a distant
reserve toward his son.”
In this anecdote—and in his works—it is evident that Confucius had the
Chinese estimate of the child—the father was sovereign; the child, as long
as that sovereign lived, a mere subject. It was this idea and the strongly
implanted idea of filial piety that led to the callous attitude toward children
among the disciples of Confucius.
The Chinese explanation and defence of this phase of their life is that up to
the year 232 b. c. there did not exist in China anything but the most humane

system of treatment of children. The Jesuit authors of the Mémoires declare
that up to that time there is no trace of the drowning of infants, their
abandonment, etc. Instead of being a burden, says the missionary
chronicler, children were considered an asset and the orphan was generally
in the position of having to choose between many would-be adoptive
parents. The law is cited to prove this, the Code declaring that in case there
were several people anxious to adopt an orphan, preference should be given
to those who were childless.80
It was under Ts’in Chi Hoang,81 who reigned about 232 b. c., that the
abominable practice grew up, along with many other ills. The greed and
avarice of the nobles and the Emperor’s immediate following produced
much suffering, in the wake of which came famine, causing mothers and
fathers to abandon children that they were not able to feed.
Whatever truth there may be in this statement, there is very little doubt that
the reign of Ts’in Chi Hoang was one of bloodshed, war, and suffering and
that with the end of the Chou (or Chow), dynasty, and the accession of the
Prince Ts’in, first as the dominating King and then as Emperor of China,
there was much suffering.
“It was a time of extreme severity,” says the historian Tsse Ma Thsien, “and
all affairs were decided according to the law without either grace or
charity.”82
In addition to his bloodthirsty qualities, the Prince Ts’in, who was known as
the Great First Emperor and who insisted that all successors should be
known as the Second, Third, and Fourth Emperors, was superbly egotistic.
Everything, including literature, was ordained to begin from his reign, to
which end he issued an edict that all books should be burned. He put to
death so many hundred of the literati who refused to obey this edict that the
“melons actually grew in winter on the spot beneath which the bodies were
buried”83—a tribute to the fertile character of the Chinese literati.
Even assuming that the ill-treatment of children as we know it today did not
extend farther back than the period ascribed to it by the Catholic
missionaries, the period of Ts’in Chi Hoang, the earliest records of the
Chinese indicate that the family was placed on a plane that, for severity
toward children, challenges even the Roman patria potestas. To the

Emperor Yao or Yau, who is supposed to have reigned about 2300 years
before Christ, is ascribed the first step in establishing the Chinese attitude
toward parents and the respectful obedience exacted from children.
Particular emphasis was laid on the son’s obedience. It was apparently
taken for granted that a daughter would not be rebellious.
Having occupied the throne a long time, Yao, as it is said, called his
ministers about him and, telling them that he had now reigned for more than
seventy years, expressed his willingness to abdicate in favour of any one
who felt capable of taking the Emperor’s place. When no one volunteered—
they were wise Chinese—he asked them to suggest someone who was
deserving of charity.
“Yu Chun,” answered the ministers, “though an aged man, is without a wife
and comes from an obscure family. Though his father was blind and of
neither talent nor mind, and his mother a wicked woman by whom he was
mistreated, and though his brother Siang is full of pride, he has observed the
rules of filial obedience and has lived in peace and has gradually improved
the condition of his family.”
“Then,” replied the Emperor, “I shall give him my two daughters in
marriage and he shall succeed me on the throne to the exclusion of my son,
Ly, who has shown himself to be unworthy by his lack of respect for his
parents.”
And it was this Yu Chun, it is said, who further established the Chinese
principles of morality, by which the family and not the individual shaped
the progress of the nation.
How well established those principles became may be seen from the Li Ki,
which was composed about a thousand years later. This is a code or book of
ceremonials on the civil life, composed or put together by or under the
patronage of Tscheou Kong, uncle of the Emperor Tchin Ouang, in 1145 b.
c.

“A son,” says the Li Ki, “possesses nothing while his parents are living. He
cannot even expose his life for a friend.”84
“A son has received his life from his father and his mother,” says Confucius
in the Hiao King, composed 480 b. c., “and this gives them rights over him
that are above all others.”

In the legend of How Tseih, the founder of the House of Chow, whose
mother was Keang Yuen and whose father was “a toe print made by God,”
the adventures of the child are thus described:
He was placed in a narrow lane,
But the sheep and oxen protected him with loving care.
He was placed in a wide forest,
Where he was met with by the wood-cutters.
He was placed on the cold ice,
And a bird screened and supported him with its wings.
When the bird went away
How Tseih began to wail.
His cry was long and loud
So that his voice filled the whole way.

No indication is given in the ode as to who was responsible for exposing the
infant to these dangers, but just as in other mythologies in which the heroes
or near-gods survive the dangers of infancy, there is no doubt that this
Chinese hero was pictured as having overlived dangers that were the
common lot of the average child. The commentators take different views of
the person responsible for the dangers to which How Tseih was subjected,
Maou believing that it was the father, the Emperor K’uh; Ch’ing on the
contrary holding that it was Keang Yuen, the mother, who did it herself but
not for the purpose of getting rid of the child so much as to show what a
“marvellous gift he was from Heaven.”85
It is not that there are not occasional tender strains in the ode. Number
seven in the Odes of Ts’e, the poet, sings:
How young and tender
Is the child with his two tufts of hair.
When you see him after not so long a time
Lo! He is wearing the cap.86

Writing later the Emperor Tai Tsong, the author of a book called the Mirror
of Gold, repeated these ideas on ancestor worship in the following
ordinance (627 to 650 a. d.):
“The foundation of all the virtues is filial piety. It is the first thing to learn
and I in my youth have received the right lessons. I have done my best to
place at ease all my subjects to the end that the parents might be in a state to
bring their children up properly and that infants in their turn might acquit
themselves of their duties toward their parents.

“When the virtue of filial piety flourishes, then all other virtues will follow.
In order that the Empire may know that such is my desire and that it is
nearest to my heart, I now order that there be distributed in my name and
my account to all those who are known for their filial piety, five large
measures of rice. To those who have passed their eightieth year, two
measures; to those of ninety years, three measures; ... Moreover one shall
give, commencing with the first moon, to each woman who gives birth to a
son, a measure of rice.”
But twice is there mention of human sacrifice in the Chu’un Ts’ew but both
references indicate that there was little regard for honour as well as for
human life. In the account of the reign of Duke He, who ruled from 658 to
626 b. c., it is said that when the Viscount Tsang went to covenant with the
people of Choo, the Viscount was sacrificed as an animal might be
sacrificed on an altar built on the banks of the Suy in order that the wild
tribes of the East might be frightened and “drawn toward him.”87
In the twelfth year of the reign of Duke Ch’aou, who was Marquis of Loo
from b. c. 540 to 509, the army of Ts’oo seized Yew (Yin) and sacrificed
him on Mount Kang.88
Not until the reign of Choen Tche (1633 to 1662 a. d.) was there any
movement to check the slaughter of infants. Then it was found that
infanticide had desolated so many of the provinces that it was necessary for
this Emperor, the founder of the Tsing dynasty, to condemn the crime and
warn the inhabitants of Hang Hoi, of Kiang Sou, and of Fou-kien that the
practice must stop.
The first official document endeavouring to save the children was dated the
second day of the third moon, 1659, and was an appeal to the Emperor by
an under-official.
“The Supreme King,” it begins, “loves to give life and to prevent
destruction. All men have received from Heaven a pitying heart. But the
corruption of morals comes between the father and the child and causes
men to be guilty of cruelty. I, your humble subject, have learned that in the
provinces of Kiang Nan, Kiang Si, and Fou Kien there exists the barbarous
custom of drowning little girls.”

The request of the official for an imperial edict against the practice was
approved by Choen Tche, who condemned the murder of female children
and ordered the mandarins of the provinces named to use means to check
the practice. On the twenty-third day of the third moon in the same year in
the presence of his advisers, he issued the following edict:
“We had heard that there were people who drowned their girl children but
we had not been able to believe it. Today our censor T’Kiai having
addressed to us a petition on this unholy practice, we are led to believe that
it must really exist.
“The paternal emotions come from nature and there ought not be any
difference in the manner of treating sons and daughters. Why should parents
conduct themselves cruelly toward girl babies and condemn them to death?
Meng Tse has said:
“‘When one sees an infant on the point of falling into a well every man
feels in his heart the sentiments of fear and compassion.’
“Here, however, it is not a question of strangers or of passers-by. Since all
men are moved at the sight of an infant in danger when that infant is a
stranger, what kind of parents must those be who deprive their own children
of life? What excesses are they not capable of when they can commit such
crimes?

SPECIAL REPOSITORY FOR BODIES OF NEGLECTED BABIES, CHINA
(REPRODUCED FROM “CHINA IN DECAY”)

“The Supreme Ruler loves to give life and wishes that all beings might
enjoy themselves without harm. But if a mother and father destroy the child
to which they have given life, how can they help but see in that act a blot in
the celestial harmony?

“If flood and famine, war and pestilence, visit their terrors on the people, it
is because these misfortunes are the punishments for the crimes spoken of.
The ancient Emperors wept bitterly over these faults of the people and
pardoned crimes, and by that spirit imitated the Spirit of Heaven, who loves
to give life. When one of our officers addresses us a report concerning a
great wrong, we first look to save the life; if it is not possible to use
clemency, and if it is necessary that we pronounce the sentence of death,
such a decision causes us genuine sadness. How great ought to be our
sorrow, however, at the sight of an infant that had hardly been born,
condemned to death.
“Although the mandarins have prohibited this custom, all people are
probably not aware of the prohibition. Measures must therefore be taken to
bring this prohibition to the knowledge of all and an end must be put to this
custom. Not until then will we be joyous and content.
“Ho Long Tou in his book entitled On Abstaining from Drowning Little
Girls has written these words:
“‘The Tiger and the Wolf are very cruel but they understand the relations
that should exist between the parent and its offspring. Why then should
man, gifted as is no animal, show himself to be on a lower plane? Our
infants, boys and girls, are equally the fruit of our bodies. I have heard that
the sad cry uttered by these girl babies as they are plunged into a vase of
water and drowned is inexpressible. Alas! that the heart of a father or a
mother should be so cruel.’”
Choen Tche then makes an appeal to his subjects asking them not to tolerate
further this barbarous custom, dwelling on the superior and more gentle
quality of daughters over sons, citing historical instances of the good
fortune that many daughters had brought to their parents, and concluding by
promising the benediction of Heaven on those who would protect the lives
of the little females.
Choen Tche (or Shun Chih) was the ninth son of T’ien Ts’ung and was left
to the care of his uncle as regent. His reign was marked by an endeavour to
consolidate the newly acquired empire. His biographers speak of his
magnanimity as a ruler and he was much praised by his contemporaries.
The fact that he treated the Catholic missionaries with favour may also

partially explain his horror over the conditions of which he was apparently
ignorant until the protest.
Choen Tche’s reign also marked the beginning of many modern things in
the history of China. It was during his life that there took place the first
diplomatic intercourse between the government of the Middle Kingdom and
the European nations, both the Dutch and the Russians having had an
embassy resident at Pekin during 1656, but although both were treated most
politely, neither achieved the substantial gains they sought.89 It was during
his reign too that tea was first introduced to England and a substitute
produced for the quart of ale with which even Lady Jane Grey washed
down her morning bacon.
It was, however, under the reign of Kang Hi, the son of Choen Tche, that
the modern attitude toward children was approximated. The great works of
Kang Hi and his long reign have obscured the wisdom and moderation of
Choen Tche. One of Kang Hi’s first acts was to abolish for all time the
eunuchs, a law being passed and engraven on metals that it might stand the
ravages of time, forbidding for all time the employment in public service of
this class of person, and the Manchus, until the time they gave up the
sceptre a few years ago, held to their word. Thus passed out of Chinese
history its most industrious class of trouble makers.
But two years after the death of Choen Tche, a writer named Li Li Ong
collected the edicts that were being issued by mandarins to show the spread
of vice among the people. Among this collection was the following
addressed to the governor of the province of Tche Kiang by the mandarin,
Ki Eul Jia, prefect of Yen Tcheou:
“The Heaven and the Earth love to shower benefits on man and to conserve
life. But alas! the inhabitants of this prefecture of Yen Tcheou have the habit
of drowning their girl babies. The rich as well as the poor have been found
to be guilty of this crime. The tiger, despite his cruelty, does not devour his
young, and it is hard to think that man should be insensible to the cries of
his drowning infant. I myself have witnessed such drownings and that is
why I ask that you send into my six districts a proclamation strictly
prohibiting infanticide. It will be printed on stone. If any one should then be
guilty of the crime, his neighbours should be encouraged to notify the

magistrates that he might be dealt with according to law. As you are charged
to maintain morality among the people, I propose that you use this means.”
Whether this suggestion was taken or not, it is known that in that particular
province infanticide increased instead of diminished. The particularly
interesting part of this document is that it brings to light the fact from an
official source that the rich as well as the poor were the offenders and that it
was not lack of food alone that made this practice so common in China.
Even in modern times this is so, a midwife who was asked in recent years to
become a Christian saying that it was impossible inasmuch as it interfered
with her business. She said that frequently she was asked by wealthy people
to drown the female children which the parents had not the courage to kill
themselves.90
In 1720 Father d’Entrcolles translated a manual for the use of mandarins
which bore the title The Perfect Happiness of the People and which
contained a plan for a “House of Pity for homeless infants”91 and an
exhortation to put such a plan into execution, declaring that in times past
there had been such institutions for the reception of orphans and homeless
children and that nurses had been provided for them when they had been
rescued.
The next proclamation of which we have any knowledge was that issued
with the approval of the Emperor Kien Long, who reigned from 1736 to
1796. In 1772, Ngeou Yang Yun Ki addressed to the Emperor, in the thirty-
seventh year and the twenty-ninth day of the tenth moon of his reign, a
communication in which it was stated that the poor families had been
obliged to drown their daughters because they had not had enough food.
Permission was asked to inflict on the person who committed this crime, the
penalty of sixty blows from a cane, and a year in exile. In 1773 the Emperor
Kien Long himself issued the following edict against infanticide:
“The statutes fixing the penalty for the murder of a grown-up child or a
small child presuppose that the child has not failed to obey the orders of its
parents or grandparents, and cover cases where the infants are murdered
deliberately and with premeditation. This crime, which violates the laws of
nature, should be punished with the whip and with banishment. If the
infants that are thus killed are but newly-born and therefore without
intelligence and reason, the guilty cannot plead the disobedience of these

daughters as an excuse for their crimes. Therefore henceforth whenever any
one following the barbarous custom shall drown his infants, he will be
prosecuted for murder with premeditation, and when the proof has been
properly established before the proper tribunals he will receive a sentence
equal to that which is meted out to the parents or grandparents who
voluntarily assassinate their children. It is not necessary to issue a special
ordinance. Let all respect this decree.”
A dozen years later another voice was raised in protest against the drowning
of girls. Chen, Treasurer General of the province of Kiang Sou, presented to
the governor of that province a proclamation against infanticide and begged
him to publish it.
In 1815 a writer named Ou Sing King made an appeal to the officials of
China to stop the drowning of infants and the sale of women, and this
appeal falling into the hands of the Emperor Kia King, a proclamation was
issued against both vices. The writer, Ou Sing King, was given imperial
permission to go further in his investigations.
Early in the reign of Tao Kang (1820–1851) the then governor of the
province of Tche Kiang, believing that the expensive wedding gifts were the
real cause of the child murder, decreed:
“It is ordered that ornaments of gold, pearls, precious stones, and
embroidered gowns are forbidden at all marriages. As for silver ornaments,
silks, and other materials, this is the rule that we hereby establish:
“For rich families the sum set out for such purchases must not be over one
hundred taels. For people of medium fortune the expense must be limited to
from forty to fifty taels. Those of inferior blood must not spend more than
twenty or thirty taels and the poorest people must not go beyond two or
five.92
“As for gifts by the parents to the husband, the quantity is left to their
discretion; this being the means to avoid all dispute. After the marriage, on
certain occasions, it is permitted to make one or two presents. The
celebrations of three and seven days when the grandson is born or when he
attains his first year are hereby forbidden and henceforth the people should
not have any more difficulties about bringing up daughters. If, in spite of

this, the poor are unable to bring up their female children, they must carry
them to the orphanage or give them to other families.”93
On the 19th of February, 1838, the Lieutenant General Ki of the province of
Koang Tong instituted an investigation to find out what the actual
conditions were in his provinces, and after receiving his reports, issued a
proclamation in which he said:
“I am convinced that in the province of Koang Tong the custom of
drowning and suffocating the girl babies is common and that the rich as
well as the poor are guilty. The poor pretend that, not having sufficient
means of existence, they are not able to bring up their female children,
while the rich declare that there is no object in bringing up children that
occupy a purely ornamental position in the household.”
Ki then goes on to philosophize on the enormity of the crime and the folly
of these reasons. Never, perhaps, did any single individual in China devote
himself with more energy to trying to eradicate this evil than did Ki, both
by verbal castigation of those who were guilty of the crime and by
appealing to the sympathies of the inhabitants of his province. He
distributed copies of the works of Ouang Ouan. He sent out advice and
instructions to his subordinates that infanticide must be prevented; he
enlisted the nobles and educated people in this fight and reiterated that
those who were guilty of the crime would be seized, judged, and punished
with sixty blows and a year’s banishment as the law directed. Throughout
the province his efforts were regarded as extremely interesting, his
proclamations as delightful literature, and there was no decrease in the
number of murders.
In 1845 the Emperor Tao Kang himself published an edict condemning the
practice and declaring that the extreme punishment permitted by the law
would be meted out to the guilty. The edict had no effect.
In 1848 another endeavour was made by the chief magistrate of Canton,
acting on the initiative of Ki, to eliminate the evil in that particular city, but
neither in Canton or in the province of Koang Tong was there a cessation of
the evil for eighteen years afterward. The Emperor Kong Tche listed both
Canton and the province as among the places where infanticide was most
common.

During the reign of Hien Fong, 1851–1862, little progress was made. In
many parts of China during the following reign, that of Tong Tche, 1862–
1875, attempts were made to check the evil.
During the minority of the Emperor the two Empress Regents issued a
proclamation in which they appealed to the “nobles and rich of all villages
to contribute for the erection of orphanages where there might be received
abandoned children so that the poor will not be able to justify their
abominable practice on the ground of poverty.”
The reign of Koang Siu began in 1875, and was marked with vigorous
proclamations and warnings to the people to take their children to the
orphan asylums that were being established rather than to throw them into
the river.94
Of the conditions as they exist in modern times, travellers and writers are of
one accord—infanticide is horribly prevalent. The conditions vary with
different localities.
“In Fuhkien province,” says Williams, “especially in the department of
Chang Chau, infanticide prevails to a greater extent than in any other part of
the Empire yet examined. Mr. Abeel extended his inquiries to forty different
towns and villages lying in the first, and found that the percentage was
between seventy and eighty down to ten, giving an average of about forty
per cent. of all girls born in those places as being murdered. In Chang Chau,
out of seventeen towns, the proportion lies between one fourth and three
tenths in some places, occasionally rising to one third, and in others sinking
to one fifth, making an average of one fourth put to death. In other
departments of the province the practice is confessed, but the proportion
thought by intelligent natives to be less, since there is less poverty and
fewer people than formerly.”
“Infanticide, which until now has gone unpunished,” says Dr. Lauterer, “is
practised especially in Pekin and Fuhkien. A large per cent. of female
infants meet with an unnatural death because of their parents’ poverty or
their niggardliness. The unfortunates are simply cast into the nearest stream
and the corpse left until the morning when the government’s wagon collects
them, or they are exposed in the open where, not being protected from the
cold, they soon perish. Lately a decree has been made to prohibit it.”95

“The province of Fuhkien,” says Douglas, “is that in which this crime most
obtains. Inquiries show that in many districts as large a portion as one
fourth of the female children born are destroyed at birth. At Pekin, on the
other hand, it cannot be said to exist at all. But in this as in so many social
offences in China, the sword of the law, which is alone capable of putting
down crime, is allowed to hang like a rusty weapon on the wall. It is true
that occasionally proclamations are issued in which the heinousness of the
evil is explained with all the impressiveness that could be desired, but so
long as natural affection finds no support from without it will continue, in
China, to yield to the requirements of daily food.”96

AN OVERBURDENED CHINESE CHILD CARRYING MORE
THAN HIS WEIGHT IN TEA
(COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N. Y.)

“LITTLE MOTHERS”—THE ONE FIVE, THE OTHER EIGHT, YEARS OLD—
CHINA

“The custom of infanticide,” wrote Professor Krausse, “is one which has
obtained in many parts of China for ages. It does not, as a rule, take the
form of actual murder, but consists rather in assisting the laws of Nature.
Thus an infant will be neglected and permitted to perish, or if it sicken, will
be put aside and allowed to take its chance.”97
“Outside the wall [of Wie Hsien],” writes A. J. Brown, “we saw a ‘Baby
House,’ a small stone building in which dead children of the poor are
thrown to be eaten by dogs!
“I wanted to examine it, but was warned not to do so as the Chinese
imagine that foreigners make their medicine out of children’s eyes and
brains, and our crowds of watching Chinese might quickly become an
infuriated mob.”98
In the face of all this one reads with interest in a book by a professor of
Chinese in the University of Cambridge that:
“Among other atrocious libels which have fastened upon the fair name of
the Chinese people, first and foremost stands the charge of female

infanticide, now happily, though still slowly, fading from the calculations of
those who seek the truth.”99

CHAPTER V
DEATH BY NEGLECT AND SACRIFICE IN JAPAN—THE NEW-BORN TABOO—MYTH OF
THE EXPOSURE OF THE CHILD OF THE GODS—GROWTH OF THE MARRIAGE
CUSTOM—THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHINESE—MODERN CANNIBALISM—MODERN
LAWS ON THE SALE OF CHILDREN.

T HE first inhabitants of Japan were a numerous people named Koropok-
guru, who lived in conelike huts built over holes dug in the earth and
who were exterminated by the Ainu people. The latter were in turn
conquered by the race that we speak of today as the Japanese; these last
settlers coming to the islands of Japan from somewhere in the north of
Central Asia, while a second stream of South Asian immigrants were drifted
to Japan by the Japan current.
In the Kojiki, or “Records of Ancient Matters,” dictated by Hide-no-are and
completed in a. d. 711 or 712, we have a record of the mythology, manners,
language, and the traditional history of Japan; this “history” purports to give
the actual story of Japan from the year 660 b. c., when the first Emperor
Jimmu, “having subdued and pacified the savage deities and extirpated the
unsubmissive people, dwelt at the palace of Kashiwabara.” Modern
Japanese scholars as well as Western scholars are inclined to say that there
is really no authentic history before a. d. 461 but as a picture of the customs
of early Japan, the Kojiki is still the only authentic document that we have.
Inazo Nitobe, in dividing the history of his country into periods, groups the
legendary age and all that went before the political reforms of the seventh
century as the first period, under the name of the “ancient period.”
These ancient people, the mythical people of the Kojiki, had passed through
a genuine Bronze Age and had in general attained a high level of barbaric
skill. Of their many curious customs, both in the Kojiki and in the equally
important Nihongi or “Chronicles of Japan,” prominent notice is made of
the “parturition house”—“one-roomed but without windows, which a
woman was supposed to build and retire into for the purpose of being
delivered unseen.” Here is evidence that the infant was “taboo” until it had
been received by the head of the house.

Even up to recent times in the island of Hachijo the custom survived
according to Ernest Satow, who visited this island in 1878.
“In Hachijo,” wrote Mr. Satow, “women, when about to become mothers,
were formerly driven out to the huts on the mountainside, and according to
the accounts of native writers, left to shift for themselves, the result not
unfrequently being the death of the new-born infant, or if it survived the
rude circumstances under which it first saw the light, the seeds of disease
were sown which clung to it throughout its after life. The rule of non-
intercourse was so strictly enforced that the woman was not allowed to
leave the hut even to visit her own parents at the point of death, and besides
the injurious effects that this solitary confinement must have had on the
wives themselves, their prolonged absence was a serious loss to households
where there were elder children and large establishments to be
superintended. The rigour of the custom was so far relaxed in modern times
that the huts were no longer built on the hills, but were constructed inside
the homestead. It was a subject of wonder to people from other parts of
Japan that the senseless practice should still be kept up, and its abolition
was often recommended, but the administration of the Shoguns was not
animated by a reforming spirit, and it remained for the government of the
Mikado to exhort the islanders to abandon this and the previously
mentioned custom. They are therefore no longer sanctioned by official
authority and the force of social opinion against them is increasing, so that
before long these relics of ancient ceremonial religion will in all probability
have disappeared from the group of islands.”
As with most early histories there is little description of custom or manners
in either the Kojiki or the Nihongi, but we gather what the general attitude
was toward children from the fact that the conception of marriage was
probably limited to cohabitation, this condition lasting until well on into the
Middle Ages,100 cohabitation being often secret at first, but afterward
acknowledged. When the latter conditions had come to prevail, the young
man, instead of going to his mistress under the cover of the night, brought
her back publicly to his parents’ home, and that was the beginning of his
own home.
Little is there in the Kojiki about the care of children but the harshness
toward women about to have children, as shown in the frequent reference to

the parturition houses, shows that unless they were children of royalty they
were left to whatever care their mothers might be able to bestow on them.
In the account of the making of Japan by the two Heavenly Deities, known
as the Izani-gi-no-kami and Izana-mi-no-kami, the Man Who Invites and
the Female Who Invites, it is stated that their first child was not retained.
“This child,” says the legend,101 after retailing the events that led up to its
birth, “they placed in a boat of reeds and let it float away. Next they gave
birth to the island of Aha. This is not reckoned among their children.”
Among the gods, therefore, children were rejected or accepted without
ceremony, and with such an attitude of rejection or acceptance depicted as
the normal condition among the deities, it may easily be imagined what was
the attitude of the ordinary beings who modelled their conduct on that of the
deities.
It is told of the first Emperor Jimmu, that, meeting a group of seven
maidens, he invited one of them to become a wife of his, and on her
acceptance the sovereign passed the night at her house. This constituted the
only marriage ceremony that the times knew. As far as the woman was
concerned, all that the new condition meant was that she was liable to
receive a visit at any time from her new lord and master, but on his side
there was no obligation, no duty of fidelity, and he was free to form as
many similar unions as fancy dictated.
The children were brought up by the mother and one household of a man
might be in absolute ignorance of another.102 Mistress, wife, and concubine
were on the same footing and could be discarded at any moment. When the
Deity of Eight Thousand Spears, attired in his favourite courting costume, is
about to go forth and search for a “better wife” he boldly announces that:
When I take and attire myself so
Carefully in my august garments green
As the kingfisher—
It is with the intention of finding another mate.

To this the Chief Empress, Her Augustness the Forward Princess, to whom
the frank statement is made, plaintively replies:
“Thou ... indeed, being a man, probably hast on the various island-
headlands that thou seest and on every beach-headland that thou lookest on,

a wife like the young herbs. But I, alas! being a woman have no man except
thee; I have no spouse except thee!”103
What became of the children in the cases of conjugal separation does not
appear, a statement that is made by no less a Japanese authority than
Chamberlain.104 In only one instance is there any reference made to the fate
of a child that had been deserted, but this is an unusual case, where the
father had violated the rules of the parturition house, with the result that the
mother disappears, leaving the father to take care of the child. He pledged
himself to look after it until the day of his death but the sister of the child’s
mother was first invoked to act as nurse.
The result of this system of family life was that where the children of
different mothers but of the same father discovered one another’s presence
there were feuds and much fighting, especially as it was the children of the
latest affection who were generally the recipients of his favour to the
chagrin and anger of the less favoured children and families. Marriages
between half-brothers and halfsisters were another result of the system, the
only restriction on marriages of any kind being that children of the same
mother should not marry. Sons of the same father were thus incited to be
enemies rather than brothers, in the accepted sense, and the annals of the
civil wars are replete with tales of treachery and ambition and show almost
an entire absence of natural affection. The fact that the children had no
claim on the love and the protection of the father and that their mother was
condemned under the ancient system to the function of a mere animal, is
cited by Brinkley as the reason for this cruelty and treachery.105
This was the position of the child in the society that is depicted in the Kojiki
and the Nihongi, although the latter, written about forty years after the
Kojiki (a. d. 720), and under the influence of the Chinese, is more apt to
depict the conditions that sprang up with the spreading Chinese culture.
The fourth century brought to Japan a knowledge of Chinese classics, and
Chinese morals, and in 552 a. d., there came a still greater change when the
Buddhistic religion was introduced through a copy of the scripture and an
image of Buddha being sent to the Yamato Court by the government of one
of the Korean kingdoms. Unsuccessful preachments there had been by
unofficial missionaries before this, but the arrival of the Korean ambassador

served to bring to the attention of the government the new religion in a
manner calculated to arouse interest in its doctrines.
Whatever may be the defects of Shintoism, human sacrifice never seems
really to have been part of its practice,106 and to this fact, with the
increasing regard for life that came with civilization, is undoubtedly due the
little emphasis given to infanticide among the Japanese. Another influence,
undoubtedly, and this is said to be the “best point of Shinto,”107 is that the
people were taught that they themselves were sons and daughters of the
gods, a belief apt to save the killing of surplus members of society in a time
of economic stress.
According to the Nihongi, human sacrifice was put an end to in Japan in the
year a. d. 3:
“Tenth month, fifth day: Yamato-hiko, the Mikado’s younger brother by the
mother’s side, died.
“Eleventh month, second day: Yamato-hiko was buried at Tsukizaka in
Musa. Thereupon his personal attendants were assembled, and were all
buried alive upright in the precinct of the tomb. For several days they died
not, but wept and wailed day and night. At last they died and rotted. Dogs
and crows gathered and ate them.
“The Emperor, hearing the sound of their weeping and wailing, was grieved
at heart, and commanded his high officers, saying:
“‘It is a very painful thing to force these whom one has loved in life to
follow him in death. Though it be an ancient custom, why follow it if it is
bad? From this time forward, take counsel so as to put a stop to the
following of the dead.’
“a. d. 3, seventh month, sixth day: The Empress Hibasuhime no Mikoto
died. Sometime before the burial the Emperor commanded his ministers,
saying:
“‘We have already recognized that the practice of following the dead is not
good. What should now be done in performing this burial?’
“Thereupon Nomi no Sukune came forward and said:

“‘It is not good to bury living men upright at the tumulus of a prince. How
can such a practice be handed down to posterity? I beg leave to propose an
expedient which I will submit to your Majesty.’
“So he sent messengers to summon up from the land of Idzumo a hundred
men of the clay-workers Be. He himself directed the men of the clay-
workers Be to take clay and form therewith shapes of men, horses, and
various objects, which he presented to the Emperor, saying:
“‘Henceforward, let it be the law for future ages to substitute things of clay
for living men, and to set them up at tumuli.’
“Then the Emperor was greatly rejoiced, and commended Nomi no Sukune,
saying:
“‘Thy expedient hath greatly pleased our heart.’
“So the things of clay were first set up at the tomb of Hibasuhime no
Mikoto. And a name was given to those clay objects. They were called
hani-wa or ‘clay rings.’
“Then a decree was issued, saying:
“‘Henceforth these clay figures must be set up at tumuli; let no men be
harmed.’
“The Emperor bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service, and
also appointed him to the official charge of the clay-workers Be. His
original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi no Omi. This
was how it came to pass that the Hashi no Muraji superintended the burials
of Emperors.”108
The date ascribed to this incident cannot be depended on. “Chinese
accounts speak of the custom of human sacrifices at the burial of a
sovereign as in full force in Japan so late as a. d. 247,” says Aston. Probably
all the events of this part of Japanese history are very much antedated. But
of the substantial accuracy of the narrative there can be no doubt. Some of
these clay figures (known as tsuchi-ningio) are still in existence, and may
be seen in the British Museum, where they constitute the chief treasure of
the Gowland collection. The Uyeno Museum in Tokio also possessed
specimens, both of men and horses. None, however, remain in situ at the
tombs. The hani-wa (clay-rings), cylinders which may now be seen

embedded in the earth round all the principal misasagi, are so numerous
that they can hardly have all been surmounted by figures. But they are of
the same workmanship and of the same date, and no doubt some of them
are the pedestals of images, the above-ground part of which has been
destroyed by the weather or by accident.

TSUCHI-NINGIO. CLAY FIGURE
SUBSTITUTED FOR HUMAN SACRIFICE—
JAPAN
(REPRODUCED FROM “TRANSACTIONS
AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE JAPAN
SOCIETY,” VOLUME 1)

CROCK CONTAINING REMAINS OF
SACRIFICED CHILD. UNEARTHED AT TELL
TA’ANNEK
(REPRODUCED FROM “LIFE IN ANCIENT
EGYPT”)

“A similar substitution of straw or wooden images for living men took place
in China in ancient times, though by a curious inversion of ideas, the former
practice is described as leading to the latter.”109
While neither the lion or the tiger ever troubled Japan and her most
carnivorous and destructive animals have been wolves, tradition has
ascribed the sacrifice of human beings in Japan to the desire to placate the
god of wild animals. The victim was always a girl, and from the earliest
ages the manner of selecting her was to affix to the roof of a house a bow
and arrow. When the householder arose in the morning and discovered what
was accepted as a divine intimation, the eldest daughter of the family was
buried alive, it being supposed that her flesh served as a meal for the deity.
Later the priests of Buddha found a more profitable method of disposing of
these girls by selling them as slaves; thereby following out the fundamental
tenet of the Buddhistic religion, which is the sanctity of human life, and at

the same time increasing their wealth. Some writers refer to this practice as
being a sacrifice to an animal in the service of Shakamuni, which would
have made it a Buddhistic rite, but the idea is scoffed at by Brinkley.110
Even up to recent times it is said the habit of sacrificing human beings in
order to make the foundation of any great work more stable was common.
The corpses of two human beings were said to be under the scarps “of the
futile forts hurriedly erected for defence of Yedo [Tokio] in the interval
between Commodore Perry’s first and second coming.”111
In the Tokugawa period, extending from about 1615 to 1860, two and a half
centuries, Japan was a hermit nation distinguished for its peaceful character.
Yet its population for one hundred years remained almost stationary. By
some authorities, this has been explained not only on the ground of many
famines and devastating diseases but the common practice of abortion and
the fact that the Samurai considered it disgraceful to marry until they were
thirty, and equally disgraceful to raise a family of more than three children.
“Among the lower classes it was not common to rear all the children born,
especially if girls came too frequently.” Also, “While there was hardly in
the whole country a hospital in our sense of the term, there were in the large
cities physicians famous for their skill in preventing the birth of living
children. They kept private establishments to accommodate calculating
patrons. All authorities agreed that sexual morality in the large cities was at
a very low ebb among all classes, while luxury and effeminacy prevailed
among people high in birth and wealth.”112
As a picture of what the people were driven to and a terrible example of
what attitude famine may lead parents to take toward their children, there is
no more important document than the statement of Shirakawa Rakuo,
distinguished as the Minister of Finance of the Eleventh Shogun, Iyenari.
The trace of cannibalism in semi-civilized peoples is easier to understand
after the fearful famine in the third year of Temmei (1783).
“A trustworthy man,” says Rakuo,113 “who had travelled in this district
[northern part of country], told me that in a village which had previously
contained 800 houses there were only thirty left, the inhabitants of the rest
all having died. Having entered a village in which the houses seemed to be
larger and more numerous than usual, he proposed to rest there for the
night. He soon discovered, however, that not a single house was inhabited,

but in all the houses he saw bones and skulls scattered about the floor. As he
went on he saw innumerable bones and skulls by the roadside. He met a
man leading a pack-horse on the road, who said that he could survive
without eating the flesh of human beings as he was supported by a rich
uncle. In some places even those who abandoned themselves to eating
human flesh could not find food enough to live. Great numbers starved to
death. The price paid for a dog was 500 sen, sometimes even as high as 800
sen, a rat 50 sen. A rare work of art found no purchasers and could not be
exchanged for a go of rice. If a person died he was of course eaten by the
survivors. Those who died of starvation, however, could not be eaten,
because their flesh decayed so soon. Some people, therefore, killed those
who were certain to starve and put the flesh into brine so as to keep it for a
long time. Among other people there was a farmer who went to his
neighbour and said, ‘My wife and one of my sons have already died from
want of food. My remaining son is certain to die within a few days, so I
wish to kill him while his flesh is still eatable, but being his father, I do not
dare to raise the sword against him, so I beg you to kill the boy for me.’ The
neighbour agreed to do this, but stipulated that he should get a part of the
flesh as a reward for his service. This was agreed to and the neighbour at
once killed the boy. As soon as the deed was done, the farmer, who stood
by, struck his neighbour with a sword and killed him, saying that he ‘was
very glad to avenge his son and at the same time have double the quantity
of food.’”
Up to the close of the seventeenth century, feudal legislation was very
harsh, one of the worst laws of ancient times in force until that time being
that by which children were punished for the crime of their parents.114 If a
man or a woman had been sentenced to be crucified or burnt and had male
children above fifteen years of age, those children were similarly executed,
and if they were under that age they were given over to a relative to be
reared until they reached the age of fifteen, when they were banished. When
the criminal parent was condemned to the ordinary hanging or beheading it
was still within the discretion of the judge to condemn the male children to
be executed or exiled. The female children, while exempt from the capital
punishment, were liable to be sold as slaves.
In 1721, during the reign of the enlightened Yoshimune, who was Shogun
from 1716 to 1746, there were many reforms, and it was then enacted that

for all crimes, even those punishable with crucifixion and exposure of the
head, only the criminal himself must be punished. In the case of the most
heinous of all crimes, according to Japanese standards, parricide or the
murder of a teacher, a special tribunal was declared to be the only place
where it could be decided whether the children and grandchildren should be
implicated. Interesting too is the fact that this leniency extended to the
farmers and merchants only, the Samurai not being included, it being
assumed that the crime of a person of nobility and education was a more
serious matter than a crime by a person less fortunate—a theory of justice
that has never taken root in the minds of the Occidentals except among
romancers.
From the time, early in the seventeenth century, when the governing power
of Japan fell into the hands of the Buddhist Tokugawa family, through
Iyeyasu, the head of the house, there was an endeavour to check the sale of
children. No less than eight enactments were issued between 1624 and 1734
declaring the sale of human beings punishable by death.
Progress naturally was slow when the conditions were so flagrant that there
were open offices where the sales and purchase of children were
effected.115 In 1649 an absurd compromise was attempted when a law was
passed declaring it was lawful to sell a child, providing that the consent of
the child was obtained. There was an attempt to regulate, without
abolishing, slavery in the law of 1655, which declared that in a dispute
between an employer and the employed, the employer, if found to be in the
wrong, might be imprisoned or meted out any punishment that the
employed might suggest. It is safe to add that the administrative criminal
machinery was not in the hands of the proletariat, nor was there any
suffrage that threatened to put the employed in the position of judge.
It was during this period that the law was passed allowing the parent to
have his son or daughter imprisoned, a just cause being assumed. A father
had the right to punish his son, but the son had the right to appeal to a
magistrate for a review of the sentence; but “costs” of the appeal were
dangerous inasmuch as if the son lost he had to suffer whatever penalty his
father might dole out to him. The Occidental mind will not appreciate so
readily the attempts of the Tokugawas, beginning 1627, to regulate the
social evil, one of their early laws depriving employers of all authority “to

retain the services of a female for immoral purposes outside the appointed
quarter.”
Modern writers on Japan lay stress on the affection of the Japanese for their
children, and yet “during the famine of 1905 many girls who had been sold
by the suffering parents were redeemed by the Christians.”116 This sacrifice
of the children to the welfare of the parents is traceable to the influence of
Confucius. To the same source may be ascribed the fact that, though in
ancient times the female sex was prominent in Japan, after the introduction
of Confucianism the Samurai considered it beneath him to even converse
with his wife and children.117 “Neither God nor the ladies inspired any
enthusiasm in the Samurai’s heart,” says Professor Chamberlain. For is it
not written by the great moralist Karbara Ekken in the Owna Dargaku, “It
was the custom of the ancients, on the birth of a female child, to let it lie on
the floor for the space of three days. Even in this may be seen the likening
of the man to heaven and of the woman to earth.”118
Only a few years ago a child, both of whose parents had died of cholera,
was on the point of being buried alive by neighbours when it was
rescued.119 “Certain parts of Japan have been notorious from of old for this
practice,” says Gulick. “In Toas the evil was so rampant that a society for its
prevention has been in existence many years. It helps support children of
poor parents who might be tempted to dispose of them criminally.”
On the other hand, this word from Professor Goodrich, who as a member of
the faculty of the Imperial College pictures a nation far from indifferent to
the welfare of the child:
“Ever since the beginning of that indefinite period which we call ‘modern
times’ the birth of a child has always been an occasion for rejoicing. To be
sure, in Japan that joy was very much greater when it was a boy baby; yet
the Japanese have never displayed such intense dislike to girl babies as have
the Chinese. One great reason for this was that the population of Japan was
not so dense as it is in China. It was easier to provide for children, and
therefore there was no incentive to put girl babies out of the way. I am sorry
to say that very lately, since the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), when the
Japanese people are almost crushed by the weight of taxes to provide
money with which to pay war expenses and to keep up army and navy, the
number of cases of female infanticide is increasing alarmingly.”120

CHAPTER VI
MESOPOTAMIA THE EARLIEST CIVILIZATION KNOWN—FAINT TRACES OF CHILD-
SACRIFICE—LAWS FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CENSUS FIGURES IN STONES
—CODE OF HAMMURABI—THE STORY OF SARGON.

O UR great grandfathers who accepted the chronology of the good
Bishop Usher, by which the creation of the world was placed neatly
and exactly at 4004 years before Christ, would never have dreamed of
such periods of time as those the ethnologist, in his search for the natural
history of man, compasses today in the annals of a single family, like the
so-called, and at present discredited, Aryan. Nor yet would it have seemed
possible to our grandfathers, that modern archæology would have made it
possible for our savants and scientists to be today correcting the mistakes of
Herodotus, and showing by their decipherings of new-found inscriptions
and monuments, that before the earliest Greeks, the Egyptians, and even the
Semitic peoples who inhabited Babylon and Assyria, there was another
people,—a people whose origin it is not possible to place even now,—the
Sumerians and Akkadians, who in the fourth millennial period b. c. were
already a cultured and civilized people.
Recent excavations have changed the entire historical attack. Instead of
beginning with the Homeric Age as an age of legend, “civilization may now
be traced beyond the Mycenæan epoch, through the different stages of
Ægean culture back into the Neolithic Age.”121 In Egypt we can now go
back before the pyramid builders to the earliest dynastic kings, even to
Neolithic Egyptians of whom there are no written records. Back of the
known civilization of Assyria and Babylon, there has been discovered an
even older civilization.
“On the northern and eastern confines of the Babylonian culture-system,
new nations pass within our ken; Vannic men of Armenia, ruled by
powerful kings; Kassites of the Zagros, whose language seems to contain
elements which if really Aryan are probably the oldest known monuments
of Indo-European speech (c. 1600 b. c.); strange tongued Elamites, also,
akin neither to Iranian nor Semite. Nor does it seem to us remarkable that
we should read the trilingual proclamations of Darius Hystaspis to his
peoples in their original tongues, although an eighteenth century

philosopher would have regarded the prospect of our ever being able to do
so as the wildest of chimeras!”122
Recent excavations have established the fact that the earliest known
civilization was in what afterwards came to be known as Mesopotamia,
between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and that groups of people living in
cities and calling themselves, in the lower section of the country, the
Sumerians, and in the upper section, the Akkadians, dwelt in civilized state
until they were conquered by the Semitic peoples. The Semites in their
conquest of the Greeks, as we now know, took from the conquered the
culture of the race that was physically weaker, as indeed the Gauls did from
the Romans.
In government, law, literature, and art the Sumerians were the superior
people, and though the Semites improved on their models, the impulse, says
King, came from the Sumerians.123 It is now known that Hammurabi’s
Code of Laws, which influenced in so marked a degree the Mosaic
legislation, was of Sumerian origin, and the later religions and mythological
literature from which the Hebrews borrowed so freely, was also of
Sumerian origin.
Even with the excavations that are now going on and the discoveries that
are being made almost daily, our evidence is still too scanty and imperfect,
the gaps in it are too numerous,124 as Professor Sayce says, apropos of the
Babylonian religion, to make it possible for us to discuss with any
definiteness the attitude of these first civilized peoples toward children.
Years will pass before the tablets already in the museums will have been
deciphered, to say nothing of those that are being dug out now. A library of
30,000 tablets was discovered by M. de Srazec at Telloh in Northern
Babylonia, at Nippur in the great temple of Bel, and five times as many
were discovered later by the American excavators. Once the British
Museum was the sole repository of these treasures, containing everything
from business contracts to prayers to the gods, but now they are in the
Louvre, the Berlin Museum, the Museum of Constantinople, the University
of Pennsylvania, and even in private collections.
From these Semitic conquerors of the Sumerians, however, there came the
first civilization and the first humanization, for in this rich valley with its
abundance of water and its rich soil, the Nomads became an agricultural

people; there was plenty for all, and the germ of human tolerance that the
world was to show later toward the child, was there in that long ago pre-
Semitic civilization of Babylonia.
Traces there are, however, of an earlier attitude, when the first-born was
sacrificed. Speaking of a Babylonian text, that he believed established the
fact that there were sacrifices of the first-born among the Sumerians,
Professor Sayce said:
“My interpretation of the text has been disputed, but it still appears to me to
be the sole legitimate one. The text is bilingual, in both Sumerian and
Semitic, and therefore probably goes back to Sumerian times. Literally
rendered, it is as follows: ‘Let the abgal proclaim: the offspring who raises
his head among men, the offspring for his life he must give; the head of his
head among men, the offspring for the head of the man he must give, the
neck of the offspring for the neck of the man he must give, the breast of the
offspring for the breast of the man he must give.’” It is difficult to attach
any other meaning to this than that which makes it refer to the sacrifice of
children.125
Further corroboration of this belief of Professor Sayce was furnished by the
recently dug up Stele of the Vultures, now in the Louvre. Here there is a
representation of a wicker cage, filled with captives who are waiting to be
put to death by the god Ningirsu, who holds in his hand the heraldic
emblem of the city of Lagash. The Stele of the Vultures records the triumph
of the King of Lagash, the great Eannatum, over the men of Umma who are
undoubtedly the captives and are about to be sacrificed.126 These few
examples of human sacrifice indicate, however, that the practice had
disappeared at an early date, but, as we shall see, it did not entirely
disappear, or rather reappeared among the Semites of Palestine at a later
period.127

A POMEIOC CHIEFTAIN’S WIFE AND
CHILD

(FROM THE ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR
DRAWING IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM BY
JOHN WHITE, GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA IN
1587.)

ESKIMO MOTHER CARRYING INFANT IN HER
HOOD

(FROM ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR DRAWING IN
BRITISH MUSEUM BY JOHN WHITE, GOVERNOR
OF VIRGINIA, 1587.)

More positive knowledge, however, we have of the Sumerian laws, laws it
should be remembered that tell of a civilization 1000 years before the
Chinese.
That there was a sense of justice in Sumer and Akkad long before the period
of Hammurabi, is evident from the inscriptions found at Tello by Gerzec.
Inscriptions of the year 3500 b. c., according to Cuq, and about the year
2800, according to Kang, show that Hammurabi was indebted to the reform
king, Urukagina, for many of his laws. Urukagina declared that the people

had rights, and even went so far as to say that if the king bought the
property of a subject, he must pay for it. We have many tablets telling of the
wonderful things that he did, but the one reform which indicates that he had
a regard for the family, and consequently, there was probably more care for
children, is that provision of his laws which deals with divorce.
In telling of his reforms in these inscriptions, Urukagina records the fact
that under the old régime, if a man put away his wife, he paid the patesi five
shekels of silver and gave one to the grand vizir.
Undoubtedly in the beginning, the object of these fees was to prevent the
nobles, and through them by force of example, the plain people, from
putting away their wives too easily. In other words there was a desire to
hold together the old Sumerian family. In the course of time, however, this
became merely a bribe, for as the economic conditions improved, the
money became not so much a deterrent as a bribe. One of the things that
Urukagina did was to abolish the fees of divorce, and to attempt to stamp
out practices that were growing up.
Tablets of the time of Urukagina and his predecessor, Lugalanda, translated
by M. de Genouillac, give some indication of what the family condition
was, although we still have to guess as to what was the real attitude toward
children. Women were important; they could hold property and they were
protected in their property rights by law. This in itself might indicate that
there were no such primeval practices as exposing or drowning female
children. Among these tablets of Tello, is a series telling what provision was
made for the women who were attached to the Temple of Bau, the goddess
to whom the great ruler prays, as:
“... The one that grantest life unto the land....
“Thou art the Queen, the mother that founded Lagash.”128 In these tablets
the name of each woman is followed with the number of infants belonging
to her family, and their sex. In all, two hundred and twenty-nine infants are
enumerated, of which ninety-seven are boys and one hundred and thirty-
two, girls. Five hundred and fifty-two women are named, but before coming
to a conclusion as to the percentage this shows of children to mothers, it is
well, as de Genouillac points out,129 to remember that among these five
hundred and fifty-two women there were many young girls. Some idea of
the size of the Sumerian family may be obtained from the fact that the

number of infants charged to a single mother is seldom more than four.
Once the number seven occurs, but this is in connection with the wife of the
king, and two of these children would seem to have been adopted.
“The education of a large number of infants,” concluded de Genouillac,
“was encouraged by the pension for mothers.” Here indeed was progress!—
at a time when there was nothing but barbarism everywhere else in the
world.
It is interesting to note in these same tablets the fact that the wife of the
king or the patesi was of great importance, for all documents signed by
Lugalanda bear the name of his wife, Barnamtarra, and those under
Urukagina have the signature of his wife, Sagsag. It is more than likely too,
that the service mentioned above as being for the Temple of Bau, was for
the goddess’s representative, the Queen Sagsag. Another tablet, in which are
set forth the expenses of the servants who were apparently more attached to
the queen, speaks of thirty infants to fifty-seven women,130 and in this and
other tablets the frequent reference to the orphans who were being taken
care of, shows that there was provision for the infant whose immediate
protectors had passed away.
In the Imperial Museum at Constantinople two tablets show that parents
were free to sell their children and that these sales were frequent matters of
legal adjudication four centuries before Hammurabi. Tablet No. 830,
excavated at Tello, is imperfect, but there is enough of it to show us that in
the month of the fête of the goddess Bau, the daughter of Ab-ba-gi-na was
sold by her father, and the sale was confirmed and properly sworn to and
then registered. In Tablet No. 925, we have the sale of a daughter to a cook,
by a widow who was probably in hard straits. The daughter tries to break
the contract and the mother stands by her, but the cook brings two witnesses
who prove that the sale took place and was a proper one; as a result of this
attempted fraud, the master then inflicts punishment on the slave.131
As a further evidence of the humanity of the Sumerians, we have the fact
that, like the Egyptians, they had a god who presided over the
accouchements, a god who corresponded in some ways to the Hera of the
Greeks and the Juno of the Latins, but who had other and more kindly
functions, and was there to ameliorate pain and apparently to protect the
young. Among the Greeks and Romans the young were never thought of

except as the property of adults, whose interest always came first. In fact,
among the Babylonians and Egyptians, there was this essential difference,
that the goddess was really a midwife. Among the Sumerians, she was
known as Belitile, and was afterwards identified with Mama, the goddess of
the young; and in two texts translated by P. Dhorme,132 the two are referred
to as one. Later on the two goddesses were absorbed by the all-powerful
Istar.
It was in December, 1901, that M. J. de Morgan, Director-General of the
expedition sent out by the French Government, while excavating the
acropolis of Susa, found three large fragments of a block of black diorite
among the debris.133 When fitted together these three fragments formed a
stele eight feet high, on the upper end of the front side of which was a bas-
relief showing the sun-god, Shamash, presenting the Code of Laws to the
king, Hammurabi.
Under this bas-relief was the longest cuneiform Semitic inscription yet
recovered, having sixteen columns of text of which four and a half formed
the prologue. On the reverse of the stele there were twenty-eight columns,
the entire inscription being estimated by Johns to contain “forty-nine
columns four thousand lines, and eight thousand words.”134
Hammurabi, identified by Assyriologists as the Amraphael of Genesis xiv.,
1, was the sixth King of the dynasty of Babylon, reigning over fifty-five
years, about 2250 b. c., and the first king to consolidate the Semitic empire,
making Babylon the capital.135
There are two periods in the history of humanity: one when the morals
make the laws, and one when the laws change the morals. The Code of
Hammurabi, the oldest known code in the world, belongs to the second
period.136
While it appears from the prologue and epilogue of the Code that
Hammurabi was deeply devoted to religion and was, in addition to being
king, a pious, God-fearing man, one who destroyed his enemies North and
South, the Code is strictly devoted to civil and secular affairs. Nevertheless,
scarcely anything is known of the laws of the time dealing with crimes,
nothing having been discovered to show how murder or theft was
treated.137

Hammurabi’s Code is undoubtedly a compilation and, while he enacted
fresh laws, he built for the most part on the foundations of other men.
In the Sumerian days that preceded these Semitic kings, of whom
Hammurabi, Sargon I., and Lugalzaggisi were the greatest, there were codes
of laws on which Hammurabi doubtless built. The attitude taken toward
children in this period is indicated in extracts from the series called ana
ittisu, the seven tablets of the series giving the following seven laws:
“I. If a son has said to his father, ‘You are not my father,’ he may brand him,
lay fetters upon him, and sell him.
“II. If a son has said to his mother, ‘You are not my mother,’ one shall brand
his forehead, drive him out of the city, and make him go out of the house.
“III. If a father has said to his son, ‘You are not my son,’ he shall leave
house and yard.
“IV. If a mother has said to her son, ‘You are not my son,’ he shall leave
house and property.
“V. If a wife hates her husband and has said, ‘You are not my husband,’ one
shall throw her into the river.
“VI. If a husband has said to his wife, ‘You are not my wife,’ he shall pay
half a mina of silver.
“VII. If a man has hired a slave and he dies, is lost, has fled, has been
incapacitated, or has fallen sick, he shall measure out 10 ka of corn per
diem as his wages.”138
From this it will be observed that if the son repudiates his parent, real or
adoptive, he meets with a swift and heavy punishment. On the other hand, a
father and mother have the power to drive the child out without any
ceremony whatever. That such laws were the result of the disposition of
foundling children is without question. We will see later that the Roman
Empire in its endeavour to save the lives of children, was continually
attempting legislative reforms for the purpose of giving men and women
incentive to protect the helpless infant that had been deserted by its own
parents.
Adoption was an ancient institution, and the rights of the man who adopted
the infant were protected in order that he might be paid for the trouble and

expense of his charge.139
The adoption of children in the Code of Hammurabi is the subject of much
minute regulation. In the Code the endeavour to protect the father who
picks up a child, is shown in paragraphs 185, 186, 187 and 188:
“185. If a man take in his name a young child as a son and rear him, one
may not bring claim for that adopted son.
“186. If a man take a young child as a son, and, when he takes him, he is
rebellious toward his father and mother (who have adopted him), that
adopted son shall return to the house of his father.
“187. One may not bring claim for the son of a NER. SE. GA, who is a
palace guard, or the son of a devotee.
“188. If an artisan take a son for adoption and teach him his handicraft, one
may not bring claim for him.”140
Coming down to a later period, we may see the influence of other peoples
on the Babylonians in the Assyrian Doomsday Book or Liber Censualis,
copied from the cuneiform tablets of the seventh century, b. c.141 Sixty-
eight families are enumerated in these tablets, and to these sixty-eight
husbands there are allotted ninety-four wives. Seventy-four sons are
mentioned and only twenty-six daughters, a proportion that is extremely
suspicious. That there was no such slaughter of the females as we find in
other countries, is shown by the fact that in some of the families
enumerated there were as many as three daughters to one son, but the
majority of the families were without female children and had one or two
sons, an evenness of distribution which would lead one to surmise that the
people of the district of Harran, where this census was taken, were
regulating the birthrate themselves.
Of this period too, is the story of Sargon the younger—a legend that is
interesting not alone because of its similarity to that of Moses, but because
it shows that this section of the country had also fallen into the ways of the
rest of the world. Here, at the time of the legend, it was a common thing for
a child to run the risks of exposure and death.
As an indication of the conditions a thousand years later, we may take the
certificate of adoption cited by Dr. Rogers, of the time of King Kurigalzu

who reigned in Babylon from about 1390 b. c. to 1375.
“Ina-Uruk-rishat, daughter of (mu) shallim, had no daughter and therefore
she adopted Etirtu, daughter of Ninib-mushallim, as her daughter. Seven
shekels of gold she gave. She may give her to a husband, she may appoint
her a temple slave, but she may not make her a servant. If she does make
her a servant, Etirtu shall go to her father’s house. As long as Ina-Uruk-
rishat lives, Etirtu shall pay her reverence. When Ina-Uruk-rishat dies,
Etirtu, as her daughter, shall offer the water libation. If Ina-Uruk-rishat
should say, ‘Thou art not my daughter,’ she shall lose the gold which she
has paid. If Etirtu should say, ‘Thou art not my mother,’ she shall become a
servant. There shall no claim be made. Before Ellil, Ninib, Nusku, and King
Kurigalzu they have made oath together.
“Before Damkum, her uncle on the mother’s side. Before Rabasha-Ninib.
Before Ellil-ibni, son of Ellil-ishu. Before Etel-pi-Azagshug, son of Amel-
Marduk; before Rish-Marduk, son of Ba’il-Nusku; before Arad-Belit, the
scribe, son of Ninib-mushallim. The fifth day of Shebat, the twenty-first
year of Kurigalzu, king of the world.”142
From another point of view we may also understand the Babylonian
morality. As a characteristic it is interesting to note “that the general
modesty of the Babylonian art, in the matter of clothes, is very marked,”
says Ward, “we never see any display of Phallism.”143 That the influence
and importance of the women had much to do with the character of these
people is undoubtedly true.
They were a truly remarkable people of whom we are yet to learn a great
deal. Future excavations may reveal much, but up to now “the abundant
literature of Babylon,” says Dussaud, “does not offer a single example of
human sacrifice and yet one has the right to suppose that it was common
among them.”144

CHAPTER VII
MOST ANCIENT NATION WAS KIND TO CHILDREN—ECONOMIC PRESSURE
BROUGHT NO SPECIAL CRUELTY—PICTURE OF THE PROLETARIAT—
ABJURATIONS OF THE OLDEST BOOK IN THE WORLD—EGYPTIANS AS SEEN BY
DIODORUS SICULUS—DEGENERATING EFFECT OF GREEK SUPREMACY.

P LEISTOCENE man wandered from the Indo-Malaysia region into the
northern part of Africa, and there, in the Nile valley, the Egyptian
Hamites, as a truly autochthonous race, were evolved.
In a climate particularly favourable, great progress was made by these
aboriginal people, especially in the New Stone Age, which was of unusually
long duration, as can be seen from the beautiful flint knives plated with
gold on which are carved animal figures.145 That the actual beginnings of
Egyptian culture are twice as long as the historic period is the statement of
Keane, and Oppert claims that there are indications of a thoroughly
established social and political organization as far back as 11,500 years b. c.

ISIS IN THE PAPYRUS SWAMPS, SUCKLING HORUS

(REPRODUCED FROM “THE GODS OF THE EGYPTIANS, OR STUDIES IN
EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY”)

It is therefore not surprising that we find among the Egyptians, just as we
find among the Sumerians and the Akkadians, who were contemporaneous
in civilization about four and five thousand years before Christ, that the
attitude toward children is settled, and apparently in the child’s favour; for
aside from occasional sacrificial offerings in which the child is on a par at
least with the slave or the servant about to be sacrificed, there is no
evidence of the endeavour to do away with the children on the scale that we
find in ancient Greece and Rome and later in India and China.
Had there been, however, less positive division of castes in Egypt, the
infants of the higher class would not have been as well treated. The lives of
the military and priestly castes were almost sacred146; it was on them that
the king relied for support, and the rest of the population, whether
nominally free or slave, were foreordained to a life of incessant toil.
Maspero quotes from the Sellier Papyrus, a satiric poem, which goes to
show the conditions in the earliest time among these workmen whose lives
of hardship were only varied by the irregular visits of the tax-gatherers.
These visits, though dreaded, were never prepared for and were always the
occasions of several days of protestations, threats, beating, cries of pain
from the tax-payers, lamentations from the women and children, the
gathering up of the tax, the departure of the tax-collectors and then the calm
with the resumption of labour until the next visit of the collectors.
“I have never seen a blacksmith on an embassy,” so runs the complaint of
the proletariat 3000 years before Christ,—“nor a smelter sent on a mission
—but what I have seen is the metal worker at his toil,—at the mouth of the
furnace of his forge,—his fingers as rugged as the crocodile, and stinking
more than fish-spawn. The artisan of any kind who handles the chisel, does
not employ so much movement as he who handles the hoe; but for him his
fields are the timber, his business is the metal, and at night when the other is
free,—he, he works with his hands over and above what he has already
done, for at night, he works at home by the lamp. The stone-cutter who
seeks his living by working in all kinds of durable stone, when at last he has
earned something, and his two arms are worn out, he stops; but if at sunrise
he remain sitting, his legs are tied to his back. The barber who shaves until
the evening, when he falls to and eats, it is without sitting down—while
running from street to street to seek custom; if he is constant (at work) his
two arms fill his belly, as the bee eats in proportion to its toil. Shall I tell

thee of the mason—how he endures misery? Exposed to all the winds—
while he builds without any garment but a belt—and while the bunch of
lotus-flowers (which is fixed) on the (completed) houses—is still far out of
his reach—his two arms are worn out with work; his provisions are placed
higgledy piggledy amongst his refuse, he consumes himself, for he has no
other bread than his fingers, and he becomes wearied all at once. He is
much and dreadfully exhausted—for there is (always) a block (to be
dragged) in this or that building, a block of ten cubits by six,—there is
(always) a block (to be dragged) in this or that month (as far as the)
scaffolding poles (to which is fixed) the bunch of lotus-flowers on the
(completed) houses. When the work is quite finished, if he has bread, he
returns home, and his children have been beaten unmercifully (during his
absence). The weaver within doors is worse off there than a woman;
squatting, his knees against his chest,—he does not breathe. If during the
day he slackens weaving, he is bound fast to the lotuses of the lake; and it is
by giving bread to the doorkeeper, that the latter permits him to see the
light. The dyer, his fingers reeking—and their smell is that of fish-spawn;—
his two eyes are oppressed with fatigue, his hand does not stop,—and, as he
spends his time in cutting out rags—he has a hatred of garments. The
shoemaker is very unfortunate; he moans ceaselessly, his health is the
health of the spawning fish, and he gnaws the leather. The baker makes
dough, subjects the loaves to the fire; while his head is inside the oven, his
son holds him by the legs; if he slips from the hands of his son, he falls
there into the flames.”147
The matriarchal tendencies of the Egyptian Government also account for
the fact that children, as a rule, were not only allowed to live but were better
treated than they were among other peoples. Even the first Egyptians,
although semi-savages like those inhabiting Africa and America, were
different in their attitude toward women to such an extent that the Greeks
were led into believing that in Egypt the woman was supreme. The husband
entered the house of the wife instead of the wife entering his148 and this led
to the children recognizing the parental relation through the mother alone.
To this matriarchal tendency may also be attributed the activity of
Maskonit, the god who appeared at the child’s cradle at the very moment of
its birth, and Raninit, who gave him his name and saw that he was properly
nursed. With two such deities in the list of gods, obviously the creations of

women and hardly those of semi-savage men, it was evident that the women
were using their best supernatural means to protect childhood. Significant,
too, may be the fact that these protecting deities were goddesses, for, as
may be seen from the story of the ill-fated prince,149—there was always a
chance that either the crocodile, the serpent, or the dog, might get the infant.
In the possibility of death by either of the three, there was the memory of
days when mothers were either less careful or had not much authority.

GROUP OF M’AYPTAH, THE PRIEST OF PTAH, WITH HIS FAMILY

(REPRODUCED FROM “LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT”)

Such knowledge as we have of the kings of the Fifth Dynasty indicates that
they were builders, but it was during this dynasty, in the reign of Tetka-Ra
(about 3366 b. c.), that what has been described as the oldest book in the
world, the Precepts of Ptah-Hotep, was written. In this remarkable
document the first care of the author after a stirring picture of old age, for it
is evident that Ptah-Hotep wrote in his old age, is to enjoin those who read,
that by following in the ways of the fathers, the children will prosper. All
through there are, as M. Chabas pointed out, evidences that it furnished the
basis for many of the later injunctions of the Hebrews in regard to filial
obedience:

“Bring up your son in obedience.”
“The son who receives the word of his father will live to be old because of
it.”
“Beloved of God is obedience; disobedience is hated by God.”
The later injunction of Ecclesiastes, ix., 9, is found in the 18th rubric:
“If you are wise take good care of your house; love your wife and cherish
her.”150
The husband and wife are frequently represented together at this time, and
their attitude toward one another is most affectionate. In the group of
M’Ayptah we see the Priest of Ptah in what to our modern understanding is
a real family group, not unlike those the photographer of the congested
districts in large cities is frequently called on to perpetuate. On the left of
the Priest is his wife, Ha’tshepest, while on his right is his grown-up
daughter. Two smaller figures represent a second daughter and the grandson
of M’Ayptah.151 The prominence of women here in relations so affectionate
is unlike anything that we find in other ancient nations, and argues the
presence of a spirit different from that of most nations at the same stage of
culture.
In the time of the Old Kingdom (from the Third to the Sixth Dynasty), a
man had but one wife, who was the mother of his heirs, was in every
respect his equal, and shared authority with the father over the children. The
natural line of inheritance was through the eldest daughter, and the closest
ties were through the mother.152
In the Adventures of Sanehat, a story written apparently at the time of
Amenemhat I., the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, Sanehat’s description of
his reception in the court of the king, when the royal children were brought
forth to join in the general celebration, would also indicate that there was no
desire to show any preference to either sex.153
That human sacrifice lasted up to the Eleventh Dynasty154 is the belief of
Messrs. King and Hall, who point to the excavations at Thebes, in the
precinct of the funerary temple of Nebhapet-Ra-Mentuhetep and about the
central pyramid which commemorated his memory. There were buried a
number of ladies of his harim, who were without doubt killed and buried at

the same time, in order that they might accompany their royal master to his
new abiding place. With each of these ladies there was buried a little waxen
human figure placed in a little coffin, the image being intended to take the
place of the slave of the lady of the harim. As the ladies were not royal, real
slaves were not killed for them, which shows that the idea of sacrifice even
then had contracted until it was restricted to personages of the highest rank.
According to Porphyry, who quotes a work of Manetheo on Antiquity and
Piety,155 the law permitting or ordering the sacrifice of men was repealed
by Amosis. Amosis, it is said, ordered that waxen images be substituted.
The excavators have found not only the wax images but those of later days,
when wood and glazed faience as well as stone were used, the growing
humanity of the age seeking in this way to progress from the primitive
indifference to the death of others.156
Nowhere is there any evidence that among the Egyptians of the Old, and
Middle or New period (that is from the Fourth Dynasty up to the Twentieth,
or from about 2800 to 110 b. c.), children were ill-treated or suffered from
any of the usual methods of getting rid of surplus progeny. It is true that the
monuments are more given to warlike exploits than to revelations of social
manners, but the conditions in early Egypt all seem to point to the fact that,
living in a land of plenty, they had early passed beyond the stage when the
life of the child was the first sacrifice to the god of necessity.
In this connection it must be said that the only direct evidence we have
from the ancients is that of Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Cæsar,
who visited Egypt in the course of his thirty years’ preparation for his
historical work. In what he says of the punishment of those who killed their
children, he is citing the ancient Egyptians before they came under the
influence of the Greeks and Romans:
“Parents that killed their children, were not to die, but were forced for three
days and nights together to hug them continually in their arms, and had a
guard all the while over them, to see they did it; for they thought it not fit
that they should die, who gave life to their children; but rather that men
should be deterred from such attempts by a punishment that seemed
attended with sorrow and repentance.”157
In another section of his work, Diodorus is evidently speaking of the
Egyptians of his own day:

“The Egyptian priests only marry one wife, but all others may have as many
wives as they please; and all are bound to bring up as many children as they
can, for the further increase of the inhabitants, which tends much to the
well-being either of a city or country. None of the sons are ever reputed
bastards, though they be begotten of a bond maid, for they conceive that the
father only begets the child, and that the mother contributes nothing but
place and nourishment. And they call trees that bear fruit, males, and those
that bear none, females; contrary to what the Grecians name them. They
bring up their children with very little cost and are sparing, upon that
account, to admiration: for they provide them broth, made of any mean and
poor stuff that may be easily had; and feed those that are of strength able to
eat it, with the pith of bulrushes, roasted in the embers, and with roots and
herbs got in the fens; sometimes raw, and sometimes boiled; and at other
times fried and boiled. Most of their children go barefooted and naked, the
climate is so warm and temperate. It costs not the parent to bring up a child
to man’s estate, above twenty drachmas; which is the chief reason why
Egypt is so populous, and excels all other places in magnificent structures.
The priests instruct the youth in two sorts of learning; that which they call
sacred, and other, which is more common and ordinary. In arithmetic and
geometry, they keep them a long time: for in this regard, as the river every
year changes the face of the soil, the neighbouring inhabitants are at great
difference among themselves concerning the boundaries of their land,
which cannot be easily known but by the help of geometry.”158
Strabo also speaks of the Egyptians as exceptions, when he refers to the
parents’ power of life and death over children: and others assert that while
they were cruel toward the new-born of the Hebrews, they were kind
toward their own.159
The early development of the belief in a hereafter, as it showed itself in the
unusual care of the body of the deceased, also affected, without doubt, the
attitude of the Egyptians toward their own progeny, if it did not affect it
toward that of others; in dealing with the primitive and early peoples we
must always realize that we can understand them only by the way in which
they dealt with their own. Their kindness to their own, argued an advanced
civilization—to test their degree of civilization by the attitude they took to
the children of slaves or the children of servants, is to ask more of them
than we can ask of our contemporaries.

In the desire to look after the future life, the Egyptians were exceptional, as
their embalming showed. They lived in a salubrious country, they boasted
that they were “the healthiest of mortals,”160 and so great was their horror
that any one should mutilate the human form, that the paraschistes
παρασχιστἡς who made the necessary incisions in the dead when a body
was to be embalmed, became an object of execration as soon as his job was
over. According to Diodorus Siculus, he was always assaulted by his own
assistants, stones being thrown at him with such violence that he had to take
to his heels in order to escape with his life.161
Perhaps it is a far cry, but it seems as though a people who made such
preparations as the Egyptians did for the dead, would have been chary of
causing the death of those who had sprung from their own loins. For the
care of the dead was not confined to the noble and the wealthy alone—the
lower classes were also affected by the desire for a proper kind of funeral,
to the extent that enterprising people procured an old empty tomb, enlarged
it, and let places out in it. Hither then, came the fisherman, the peasant, and
the dancing girl—in death they were the equal of the king, for they were
buried with ceremony, their bodies were placed where the tomb equipment
might be by them—and thus with the king, the noble, and the wealthy, they
waited the time that was to be.162
Among such a people it is hard to think that the death of even a child was
treated lightly.163
Of the Egyptians after the conquest of Alexander we must write as of the
Greeks; and in the matter of children it is important to note that a recently
discovered papyrus, written in Greek in the year 1 b. c., shows how
completely the foreign point of view had been absorbed in a land in which
four thousand years yielded up not a single evidence of the assassination of
children.
The papyrus is a letter from Illarion, whose home is at Oxyrhynchus, and
who evidently has gone to Alexandria with other workmen. He has
apparently not sent his wife many messages of affection despite the fact that
she is about to have a child. When the other workmen are going to return
home, he plans to stay in Alexandria, but he promises to send home some of
his wages. The part of the letter that is most interesting to us is his
injunction that if the child that is expected should turn out to be a female, it

should be cast out. In the salutation, Illarion refers to his wife as his sister,
marriages between brother and sister having been common in Egypt, and
the term being one of endearment. The letter follows:
“Illarion to Alis his sister, many Greetings, and to mother Berous and
Apollonarion. Know that I am still even now at Alexandria. I urge and
entreat you to be careful of the child, and if I receive wages soon I will send
it to you. When you bear offspring, if it is a male let it be, if a female
expose it.

LETTER OF ILLARION, AN EGYPTIAN LABOURER, TO ALIS, HIS WIFE.
PAPYRUS WRITTEN AT ALEXANDRIA, 17 JUNE, 1 B. C.

(REPRODUCED FROM “LIGHT FROM THE ANCIENT EAST”)

“You told Aphrodisisa, ‘Do not forget me.’
How can I forget you? I urge you therefore not to worry.
“Twenty-ninth year of Cæsar, Paune 23 (addressed). ‘Deliver from Illarion
to Alis.’”164

CHAPTER VIII
CHILDREN IN INDIA—STORY OF THE MAHABHARATA—FEMALE CHILD DESPISED—
A HUNDRED COWS THE PRICE OF A SON—RECORDS LEFT BY HISTORIANS OF
ALEXANDER’S CONQUEST—ATTEMPTS BY BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO CHECK
INFANTICIDE—WORK OF JONATHAN DUNCAN AND COL. ALEXANDER WALKER.

I N an examination of the attitude of early man toward the child, there
could be no more illuminating study than that of the habits of our own
ancestry, the so-called Aryan primitives.
Whether the cradle of the race was in India and spread from there
throughout Europe, or whether the original habitat was Central Europe, the
fact remains that the earliest records of the civilization of all of the races
from the Indians and Aryans in Asia to the Celts, Teutons, Hellenes, Goths,
and Italians indicate that they were a pastoral rather than an agricultural
people and that while the family was the unit, the father was undoubtedly
the supreme power that later marked the pater familias in Rome.
The mere absence of fish-hooks in the archæological remains and the fact
that the Aryans were for a long time a fish-hating race (the word fish-eater
used as a term of opprobrium by Herodotus, there being no mention of
eating fish in the Vedas and only occasionally in Homer) go to show how
limited was the food of that race. It is only as the various branches of the
race developed that they came to know the art of fishing and the value of
fish, a fact that is shown in the lack of a common name for fish in the Aryan
tongues. The age of Homer was really the beginning of the Iron Age of the
Aryan people, the culture of Italy and Hellas resulting from a “lengthened
process of historical evolution” stimulated and developed by contact with
the high culture of the Semites, which again was derived from the proto-
Babylonian people.165
Up to this time in the struggle for existence of these semi-savages
everything was sacrificed for war, and infanticide and human sacrifice were
practised, there being reason to believe that even cannibalism was practised
in Britain, if not by the Celts certainly by the Iberians.
Early Greek myths reveal a condition of society little different from that
which the missionaries in recent years have found at Dahomey. Children

were killed when they were not wanted; wives were bought and sold. The
practice of breaking a bottle over the bow of a vessel is a survival of a
savage practice of the vikings of binding a human being to the prow when
the war galley was launched in order that the keel might be sprinkled with
sacrificial blood.
Recent philological research corrected by archæological discovery has
established the fact that the members of the Aryan race up to the time of the
Homeric legends were nomad herdsmen who had domesticated the dog and
wandered over the plains of Europe in wagons drawn by oxen. They knew
how to fashion canoes out of the trunks of trees but with the exception of
native copper they were ignorant of metals. It is extremely doubtful if they
practised any agriculture. They collected and pounded in stone mortars the
seed of some wild cereal, either spelt or barley. They recognized the
association of marriage but they were polygamous. They practised human
sacrifice and they retained after birth only those children that they could
conveniently rear, or those male children who were regarded as necessary
for the increase of the fighting forces of the tribe.
Upon the Dasyas, the dark-skinned, flat-nosed people who originally
inhabited India, the Aryans triumphantly descended, eventually driving the
Dasyas out of their lands. From the Rig Vedas we learn the nature of the
Aryan conqueror. He was a warrior, but he was a prayerful warrior who
prayed for health, a defensive armour, and a comfortable dwelling. There
were frequent sacrifices to the gods and at all of the sacrifices interesting
philosophical and sphagiological discussions took place. In his prayers he
prayed for racy and healthy children, but he always prayed for boys and
never for girls. His children were part of his scheme of wealth; they were
his body and soul.166

FLORIDA WOMEN SACRIFICING THEIR FIRST-BORN CHILDREN

(FROM AN OLD PRINT)

The two great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, are the two
sources of information on this period. Written down when the art of writing
became known about the year 800 b. c., these books mirror the life of the
people for centuries further back. The attitude toward children can only be
gleaned from such statements as that Bhishma, one of the heroes of the
Mahabharata, was the eighth son of his father, and the first to be allowed to
live. The deaths of the previous seven are explained on the ground that his
father Shantanu, the King of Hastinapur, was married to Ganga, the river
goddess, who had consented to be the wife of the King on condition that, no
matter what he might see her do, he would ask no questions. When she,
however, having drowned the seven, attempted to drown the eighth son, he
was obliged to cry “enough,” thereby saving the son but losing his wife,
who departed declaring that the previous seven sons had been seven of the
deities, condemned to a fresh life for some venial sin, and had been released
by her from their punishment by an early death.
With such a story recited as semi-religious doctrine it can easily be seen
why there grew up early the feeling that there was no crime in taking the
lives of those children who were regarded as unnecessary.

Bhishma takes a vow not to marry, in accordance with which he refuses the
offer of Amva who revenges herself when she is born a second time, as
Chikandini, the daughter of a great king. The epic opens up another view of
the early Aryan attitude when it is stated that Chikandini, although a
daughter, is allowed to live; but in order to accomplish this her mother hides
her sex for twenty-one years.167
In the Sankhayana-Grihya-Sutra there is a long description of the ceremony
of the Pumsavana (the ceremony to secure the birth of a male child) which
with its earnest prayer for a male child, not only at the time of coition but
again with much ceremony in the third month, shows that the female child
was doomed to a most unwelcome reception at the very best. As we shall
see later, these ceremonies were bound to produce, in the course of time,
not only the practice of killing female infants without remorse but even the
disgusting ceremonies that marked female infanticide in some places.168
The feeling of these people at all times about women is best expressed in
the words of the ordinance of Manu: “Women are born to bear children.”169
The female child that escaped death had therefore a sharply defined life
before it. It is a question, as Professor Gottheil suggests, as to whether it is a
degeneracy that brings about the death of these infants in view of the life
they would be obliged to lead. Girls were betrothed at three or four years of
age and at seven had gone through the ceremony of marriage to boys of
whom they knew nothing, and when those boys died they remained virgin
widows. At one time it was possible for them to be taken to their boy
husbands’ homes and in some instances they became mothers before they
were eleven. Not until March 19, 1891, was a law passed in India
prohibiting cohabitation before twelve.170
Vatsyayana, an ancient Hindu sage, author of the Kama-sutra, in which are
given rules for the domestic life of the Hindus, mirrors the point of view of
his time, about the first century, a. d. According to Vatsyayana parents were
to show to their children all indulgence and freedom—until they were five.
From five to sixteen they were to be instructed in the fourteen sciences and
sixty-four arts, after which time the lord of creation was enjoined to become
a householder.171
Of this early period there is plenty of evidence of human sacrifice which,
even when it did not consist entirely of children, led to the slaughter of

children. “There is no evidence,” as Professor Wilson says, “that the
practice ever prevailed to the extent to which it spread through most of the
ancient nations, or partook in general of the same character. They were in
the main sacrifices of an expiatory nature performed in fear and intended to
deprecate the anger of the gods.”172
Monier-Williams suggests that it is possible that human sacrifice was at one
time part of the Brahmanical system and adduces the story of Hariskandra
and Sunahsepa as an evidence of that practice.173 In this legend,
Hariskandra, being childless, prays to Varuna to grant him a son, vowing to
sacrifice him to the god. A son is born but the father does not keep his word,
and when the son reaches the age of discretion he refuses to become a
victim. From a starving Brahman he purchases a son for one hundred cows,
but this victim escapes by being adopted by the priest Visvamitra who is a
royal sage.174
In the Purushamedha, or the section of the Satapatha-Brahmana dealing
with the human sacrifice, a large number of men and women are bound to
eleven sacrificial posts, and after the necessary rites have been performed
on them, they are set free and eleven animals are killed instead. That in
times previous to this adoption human beings had been sacrificed, there is
no doubt.
Despite all that can be said in favour of the Buddhistic religion and the
reforms that it wrought, it is not possible to find that it made any change in
the attitude of the Hindus toward their children or the practices of the day as
did the religion of Christ and later the religion of Mohammed, one of which
sanctified the child, while the other expressly forbade infanticide. Laying
down the law that life was a period of suffering and humility, the Buddhistic
religion still declared that Nirwana was not obtainable by those under
seven, so that the life of the child did not take on any increased value under
the new religion of Gautama.
It was natural that with no forceful check on infanticide contained in the
new religion, the primitive idea so well planted should spread and become
stronger rather than diminish. It is therefore not surprising that in the
Manava-dharma-castra ascribed by Burnell175 to the period between the
year 1 a. d. to the year 500, the daughter is placed very low in the scale of
things human:

“184—Children, old people, the poor and sick, are to be known [to be]
lords of the sky; an elder brother is equal to a father; a wife and son are
one’s own body.
“185—And one’s own servants are one’s own shadow; a daughter is the
chief miserable object. Therefore offended by these, one should always bear
it without heat.”176
That infanticide was so common in the time of Alexander that it attracted
the attention even of that Greek in his march of conquest through the
country, is evident in the records that he brought back.
Q. Curtius Rufus relates,177 that on entering the kingdom of Sophytes,
Alexander was astonished at the wisdom of the laws of this barbarian.
According to Curtius and Diodorus, Sophytes was governor of a territory
west of the Hyphasis while according to Arrian it lay along the banks of the
Hydaspes.
“Here,” says Curtius, “they do not acknowledge and rear children according
to the will of the parents, but as the officers entrusted with the medical
inspection of infants may direct, for if they have remarked anything
deformed or defective in the limbs of a child they order it to be killed. In
contracting marriages they do not seek an alliance with high birth, but make
their choice by the looks, for beauty in the children is a quality highly
appreciated.”178
“These,” said Diodorus Siculus, “were governed by laws in the highest
degree salutary, for while in other respects their political system was one to
admire, beauty was held among them in the highest estimation. For this
reason a discrimination between the children born to them is made at the
stage of infancy, when those that are perfect in their limbs and features, and
have constitutions which promise a combination of strength and beauty, are
allowed to be reared, while those that have any bodily defect are
condemned to be destroyed as not worth rearing. They make their marriages
also in accordance with this principle, for in selecting a bride they care
nothing whether she has a dowry and a handsome fortune besides, but look
only to her beauty and other advantages of the outward person.”179
“A very singular usage,” says Strabo, “is related of the high estimation in
which the inhabitants of Cathaie hold the quality of beauty, which they

extend to horses and dogs. According to Onesicritus, they elect the
handsomest person as king. The child [selected], two months after birth,
undergoes a public inspection, and is examined. They determine whether it
has the amount of beauty required by law, and whether it is worthy to be
permitted to live. The presiding magistrate then pronounces whether it is to
be allowed to live, or whether it is to be put to death.”180
As far as I have been able to discover, the first attempt made by the British
Government and perhaps the first organized effort in the Eastern world to
put an end to the murder of female children was in 1789 when the British
resident officer of Benares, Jonathan Duncan, afterwards Governor of
Bombay, authenticated from the confessions of a race called the
Rajekoomars the existence of the custom. Sir John Shore, afterwards a
witness in the trial of Warren Hastings, and later Lord Teignmouth, in an
address to the Royal Society of Bengal in 1794 described how, after many
suggestions, it was decided that the only way that the Rajekoomars could be
moved was by getting them to sign an “engagement” binding them to desist
“in future from the barbarous practice of causing the death of their female
children.”
Inasmuch as that engagement was the beginning of the work in India and
was afterwards used as a model for other engagements and reveals a curious
attitude of mind on both sides, I reprint it in full:
“Whereas it hath become known to the Government of the Honourable
English East India Company, that we, the tribe of Rajekoomars, do not
suffer our female children to live; and whereas this is a great crime, as
mentioned in the Brehma Bywant Pooran, where it is said that killing even
a Fetus is as criminal as killing a Brahman, and that for killing a female, or
woman, the punishment is to suffer in the nerk, or hell, called Kat Shootul,
for as many years as there are hairs on that female’s body, and that
afterwards that person shall be born again, and successively become a leper
and be afflicted with the Jukhima; and whereas the British Government in
India, whose subjects we are, have an utter detestation of such murderous
practices, and we do ourselves acknowledge, that although customary
among us they are highly sinful, we do therefore hereby agree not to
commit any longer such detestable acts; and any among us (which God
forbid) who shall be hereafter guilty thereof, or shall not bring up and get
our daughters married to the best of our abilities among those of our caste,

shall be expelled from our tribe, and shall neither eat, nor keep society, with
us, besides suffering hereafter the punishments denounced in the above
Pooran and Shafter. We have therefore entered into this agreement.
“Dated the 17th of December, 1789.”181
On May 27, 1805, Colonel Alexander Walker, the resident at Baroda, called
the attention of the government at Bombay to the conditions in Guzerat, and
the government authorized him to go ahead and use such measures as he
deemed wise to suppress infanticide, sending him a copy of the engagement
of Duncan as a suggestion of lines that might be profitably employed.182
It was while in the course of his investigations and work in suppressing the
practice that Colonel Walker heard first from the Hindus the supposedly
divine origin of the practice of putting female children to death. It was the
supposedly divine origin and the fact that they acted within the observance
of their religious duties that gave protection against interference from civil
authorities. The Jharejas, a tribe among whom Walker made his
investigations, informed him that the origin of the practice of infanticide
came about through the fact that a powerful Raja of their caste, who had a
daughter of singular beauty and accomplishments, desired his Rajgor or
family Brahmin to affiance her to a prince of desert and rank equal to her
own.183
The Rajgor, after much travelling, returned to the Raja and informed him
that he was not able to find any one to meet the proper requirements. The
Raja was so dejected over this that, according to the story, he finally
consented to the Rajgor’s putting his daughter to death as the only means
out of the difficulty; and from that time on, according to the Jharejas,
female infanticide was practised throughout the land.184
There is much frankness in this explanation inasmuch as it was the
difficulty of marrying their daughters in a way they considered properly that
encouraged the practice. There is no doubt there had been a persistent
warfare in the formative periods of the tribes, and when the warlike
conditions made it impossible to marry the daughters advantageously, the
daughters become a burden with the result that the practice of infanticide
sprang up.

“The practice which prevailed in Europe,” says Colonel Walker, “and
chiefly amongst the principal families, of placing their daughters in
nunneries, might be traced to the same motives that led the Jharejas to put
theirs to death; and both have originated in the desire of diminishing the
cares and expense attending a numerous family.”185
That the practice, no matter how deeply rooted in the tribe, still leaves the
decision with the father, is shown from the following explanation of putting
the child to death:
“When the wives of the Jhareja are delivered of daughters, the women who
may be with the mother repair to the oldest man in the house; this person
desires them to go to him who is the father of the infant, and do as he
directs. On this the women go to the father, who desires them to do as is
customary, and so to inform the mother. The women then repair to the
mother, and tell her to act in conformity to their usages. The mother next
puts opium on the nipple of her breast, which the child, inhaling with its
milk, dies. The above is one custom, and the following is another: when the
child is born, they place the navel string on its mouth, when it expires.”186
We are further informed that “if a father wishes to preserve a daughter, he
previously apprises his wife and family, and his commands are obeyed; if a
mother entertains the wish of preserving a daughter, and her husband is
averse to it, the infant must be put to death.”187
The heads of the tribes were consulted. Many of them declared that the
women and children were well treated and pointed out the fact that the
Hindu religion has always protected the female sex from violence and that
it was unlawful to put a woman to death for any offence whatsoever. In
support of this they quote the following Sloke verse, which is extracted
from the Dhurma Shastra:
“Shut Gao Vudhet Veepra;
Shut Veepra Vudhet Streeya;
Shut Streeya Vudhet Bala;
Shut Bala Vudhet Mroosha.”

“To kill 100 cows is equal to killing a Brahmin;
To kill 100 Brahmins is equal to killing a woman;
To kill 100 women is equal to killing a child;
To kill 100 children is equal to telling an untruth.”188

Walker also came across a tribe of Brahmins called Kurada. Their object of
worship was a goddess known as Makalukshmee to whom human sacrifice
was acceptable. Another name for their deity was Vishara Bhoot, a spirit of
poison, a very amiable ghost inasmuch as it led to the poisoning of guests as
sacrifices for this queen of another world.
Among these people the following story was told as giving the origin of the
sacrifices of human beings:
“A certain Raja, having built a spacious and beautiful tank, found every
effort to fill it with water impracticable.
“This greatly distressed the Raja, and having in vain exerted every
expedient of devotion and labour the Raja at last vowed to his particular
deity the sacrifice of his own child, provided this precious offering was
accepted by the grant of his prayer.
“Accordingly the Raja directed one of his children to be placed in the centre
of the tank, on which the deity instantly gave an undeniable testimony of
his assent and gratification; the tank immediately filled with fine water, and
the child was sacrificed in being drowned.”189
The records of the correspondence and the engagements for the next eighty
years make interesting reading, especially the communications from the
various princes protesting that inasmuch as they had killed their daughters
for 4900 years it was an unfriendly act for the British Government to
interfere with the practice or insist on discussing it. Showing their humanity
and their right to be protected from interference in the matter of female
infanticide, the Futteh Mahommed Jemadar, writing to Colonel Walker,
protests that already “in this country, neither birds nor animals are killed,
goats excepted, and but few even eat them; and charitable places for fakirs
going and coming from Mecca, and Hindus performing pilgrimages, are so
strongly planted that they suffer no annoyance.”190
In an interesting batch of correspondence, 1835, between the British
political agent, J. P. Willoughby, at Kattywar and various Jhallas, Rawuls,
Gohuls, and Surwyejas of this section of India, these sub-chiefs reply to the
half-cajoling, half-commanding communications of the political agent that
they will do their best to see that infanticide is stopped, plaintively
informing the representatives of the British Government that in addition

they will promise to bring up their own daughters. “Five months since,”
says the Jhareja Dosajee, Chief of Paal, appealingly, “my brother, Jhareja
Hurreebhyee, got a daughter, which he preserved. This I wrote for your
information.”
In the brief time since 1835 there is evident the great change that has come
over the spirit of the once proud sons of the East. The iron of the West has
left its mark.
The Infanticide Act, No. 366 A, 14th of March 1871, organized and
equalized the work and showed that the government was indeed resolved
“to use every means in its power to eradicate the inhuman practice that any
relaxation of the repressive measures now to be enforced will depend on the
evidence that may be given of a disposition to reform.” Copies of the
proclamation were affixed in conspicuous places at each tehseelee, police
station, and village chopal in the proclaimed localities and with the
employment of the registrar of midwives, the imposition of extra police
under certain circumstances, and the fact that midwife and Chowkidar were
both obliged to report where the proportion of the girls to the child
population falls below twenty-five per cent.,191 an effectual check was put
on the practice of several thousand years.

CHAPTER IX
SEMITIC DEVELOPMENT IN CANAAN—SACRIFICE OF THE FIRST-BORN PERSISTS—
ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF SACRIFICE—THE CUSTOM WORLD-WIDE AMONG
PRIMITIVE PEOPLES—ASSOCIATED WITH CANNIBALISM—THE FOUNDATION
SACRIFICE—DISCOVERIES IN PALESTINE.

I N treating of the Semitic race—a race that gave to humanity the Bible
and the Koran, a race that founded Judaism, Christianity, and Islamism—
its attitude will be better understood if we approach it through the tribes
whose religions and humanitarian ideas were eventually to become the
religions and humanitarian ideas of the civilized world.
The beginning of the nation of Israel was the result of the frequent
immigration into Palestine of Semites who fused with the aborigines and
formed the Phœnician or Canaanitish people. From the time of Lugalzaggisi
(about 4000 b. c.) there were successive Babylonian immigrations also, and
from 1500 b. c. onward there were added to this mixture the Aramean tribes
that had previously inhabited the highlands between the Mesopotamian
Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Originally pure nomads, the Israelites
after settling in Canaan became excellent agriculturists,192 and there
developed the worship of Yahweh—“the worship of no other god
contributing to the sum of humanity’s ethical ideas and spiritual
conceptions a tithe of the value of that contributed by the worshippers of
Yahweh.”193
These nomadic Semites when they settled in Palestine about 1000 b. c.,
after years of wandering, had many of the characteristics of a highly
cultivated people but they also had the habits of the nomadic people that
had originally come out of Arabia. Many too were the lapses into the ways
of primitive people during the four hundred years of their wandering after
their life in Goshen.194
If, as has been said, three generations without education would reduce the
civilized peoples of today to savagery, the proneness of the Semites to fall
back into godless ways may be well understood; so too one may well
understand the protests and lashings of the prophets who saw their people
retrograding.

When the Israelites began to write their own history they were a highly
developed race in which there were few traces of early savagery, but the
habit of sacrificing the firstling was a remnant of earlier economic stress
that had passed into their religion. In order to understand the Israelite
branch of the Semitic race and how it was possible for it to produce, on the
one hand, the humanitarian ideas that rule the world today, when at
practically the same time its leaders were protesting against savage
sacrifices, but a step removed from cannibalism, one can do no better than
to quote the eloquent and learned Chwolson, though his theory of the innate
quality of a race is open to serious objections.
Commenting on the fundamental causes of the peculiarities of a people, one
of which he says is the nature of “its heart and nervous system,” he thus
describes the disposition of the Israelites195:
“In reference to the disposition (Gemueth) and organization of the nervous
system: the Semite possesses a deep, easily excitable disposition, and is
capable of mighty feelings; he is, therefore, lively, mobile, easily excited,
passionate, quickly enthused for an idea, active and enterprising, flexible
and adapting, easily finding himself at home in strange relations and
circumstances, accommodating himself to them without difficulty, without,
however, allowing of being absorbed by them.”
While, therefore, some of the Israelites developed in humanitarianism and
poetry and religion, under the favourable conditions in Canaan, others,
under various other influences, reverted to former practices. Among these
practices was that of sacrificing the first-born child.
To understand better how the people who gave to the world the Child’s
Friend retained so late the habit of sacrificing children, the scope of the
custom must be understood.
The sacrifice of human beings to the gods, says Grimm,196 rested on the
supposition that human food was agreeable to the gods and not until man
had advanced did the idea come that substitutes might be offered. In the
cannibalistic stage of development these sacrifices were eaten by the
sacrificers, thus establishing a connecting link between the humans and the
invisible gods whom they hoped to appease.

The whole theory of sacrifice will be better understood if we grasp the fact
that it was born of fear. When a nation sacrificed out of gratitude or in
apparent joyous exultation, it was in memory of days when they suffered
and their gratitude was as much a propitiation as anything else. Born in fear,
the next step in the development of sacrifice was to economize “without
impairing efficiency.”197 The result of this second effort is seen in ingenious
devices by which the burden on the worshipper is lightened by his
substituting something less valuable than what he is supposed to offer, or
what the god is supposed to want, but which the worshipper believes will be
acceptable. These substitutions are always made when the forces of nature
are treating man more kindly and when his attitude toward his gods is less
fearful, for the mind of man in time of plenty and security has always
presupposed that time to be when the gods are more or less drowsy.
With some primitive peoples, the sacrifice began as an offering of a meal to
the ancestor who had gone before, but as with all primitive peoples the
determining factor in religion is fear rather than affection, it became a
method of soliciting favours for the future, and such were the sacrifices
among the Greeks and Romans, the Hebrews, the Aryans, and the
Chinese.198
Primitive man, when unwelcome children were born, found easy excuse for
getting rid of them by offering them as a sacrifice to the impatient and
fearful gods. That at some stage in the development of the parental instinct
the excuse that the gods must be propitiated was needed to quiet the
awakening mother love, is more than likely. And surely, no more crushing
answer could there be to the request to allow a child to live than that the
gods were angry and had to be propitiated.
Another reason given for offering children was that, having just come from
the other world, they were nearer to the gods and freer of sin and therefore
more acceptable. Such reasoning argues a stage far in advance of the
cannibal who ate his own children under the idea that he was propitiating an
angry god. “The institutions of man develop with considerable uniformity
all over the globe, although as races advance, they naturally diverge more or
less under the influence of different climate, food, and other conditions.”199
Cannibalism was one of the earliest stages to which we are able to trace
many of the customs even of today, and the idea of sacrifice of children

undoubtedly had its origin in primitive cannibalistic feasts, “ceremonies
that were softened by the rise of civilization as well as migration to more
fertile land and an abundance of food sufficient to make the substitution of
an animal for a human possible.”200
Among primitive people the sacrifice of children is common. In most cases
there is some specific result that is desired when the child is sacrificed. In
the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific, the sacrifice of the child is called
nawgia and strangling is the method adopted, whenever it is found that the
ordinary cures do not affect some sick parent. It is said that the natives
watch the ceremony of strangling with much pity but that they feel it is
better “to sacrifice a child who is at present of no use to society, and
perhaps may not otherwise live to be,” than to allow a sick chief to die.201
On one occasion when the gods had been offended the native priests
decreed that the child of Toobo Toa, the chief, should be sacrificed, “on
such occasions the child of a male chief being always chosen as being
worthier than others,” and a two-year-old child was strangled against the
protests of its mother, who tried to conceal it.202
That the health of the Ynca also led to sacrifice of children is stated by
Acosta:
“They vsed in Peru to sacrifice yong children of foure or six yeares old vnto
tenne; and the greatest parte of these sacrifices were for the affaires that did
import the Ynca, as in sickness for his health, and when he went to the
warres for victory, or when they gave the wreathe to their new Ynca, which
is the marke of a King, as heere the Scepter and the Crowne be. In this
solemnitie they sacrificed the number of two hundred children, from foure
to tenne yeares of age, which was a cruell and inhumane spectacle. The
manner of the sacrifice was to drowne them and bury them with certaine
representations and ceremonies; sometimes they cutte off their heads,
annointing themselves with the blood from one eare to another.”203
Acosta also declared that when an ordinary man was sick and believed he
would die, his own son was sacrificed to the Sun or to Virachoca.
Francisco de Jerez says that the Peruvian Indians sacrificed their own
children and tinted the doors of their temples and the faces of their idols
with the blood.

THE INCAS OFFERING A HUMAN SACRIFICE TO THEIR CHIEF

(FROM “MOEURS DES SAUVAGES AMERIQUAINS,” BY P. LAFITAU,
PARIS, 1724)

AMERICAN SAVAGES SUBSTITUTING AN ANIMAL FOR A HUMAN
SACRIFICE

(FROM “MOEURS DES SAUVAGES AMERIQUAINS,” BY P. LAFITAU,
PARIS, 1724)

“They sacrifice each month their own children, and with their blood smear
the faces of the idols and the doors of the temples, and sprinkle the blood
over the graves of their dead.”204
It is certain, according to the story of Sieur le Moyne de Mourgues, that “in
that part of Florida which is near Virginia,—and where the French are under
the leadership of Sieur le Laudonnière—the people of this country regard
their chiefs as sons of the Sun and, for this reason, they pay them divine
honours, sacrificing to them their first-born.”205
“Their custom is,” according to Le Moyne, “to offer up the first-born son to
the chief. When the day for the sacrifice is notified to the chief, he proceeds
to a place set apart for the purpose, where there is a bench for him on which
he takes his seat. In the middle of the area before him is a wooden stump
two feet high and as many thick, before which a mother sits on her heels,
her face covered in her hands, lamenting the loss of her child. The principal
one of her female relatives or friends now offers the child to the chief in
worship, after which the women who have accompanied the mother form a
circle and dance around with demonstrations of joy, but without joining
hands. She who holds the child goes and dances in the middle, singing some
praises to the chief. Meanwhile, six Indians, chosen for the purpose, take
their stand in a certain place in the open area; and midway among them the
sacrificing officer, who is decorated with a sort of magnificence, and holds
a club. The ceremony being through, the sacrificer takes the child and slays
it in honour of the chief, before them all, upon the wooden stump. This
offering was, on one occasion, performed in our presence.”206
“It was the Custom in Peru, to sacrifice Children from four to ten Years of
Age, which was chiefly done when the Inga was sick, or going to War, to
pray for Victory, and at the Coronation of those Princes they sacrific’d two
hundred Children. Sometimes they strangl’d, and bury’d them, and other
times they cut their Throats, and the Priests besmear’d themselves with the
Blood from Ear to Ear, which was the Formality of the Sacrifice. Nor were
the Virgins (Mamaconas) of the Temple exempt from being sacrific’d and,
when any Person of Note was sick, and the Priest said he must die, they
sacrific’d his son, desiring the Idol to be satisfied with him, and not take

away his Father’s life. The Ceremonies us’d at this Sacrifice were strange,
for they behav’d themselves like mad Men. They believ’d that all
Calamities were occasion’d by Sin, and that Sacrifices were the
Remedy.”207
Further evidence of the attitude of the Indians is given by the first secretary
of the Colony of Virginia Brittania, who asserted that the Indians in Florida
sacrificed the first-born male child. According to this writer, their
Quiyoughquisocks, or prophets to the Indians, persuaded the warriors to
resist the settlements of the white people because their Okeus, who was god
of the tribe, would not be appeased by the sacrifice of a thousand children if
they permitted the white people, who despised their religion, to dwell
among them.208
In parts of New South Wales209 such as Bathurst, Goulburn, the Lachlan, or
MacQuarie, the first-born of every lubra was eaten by the tribe as a part of
the religious ceremony. Here, too, it was the male infant that was more
desirable as a sacrifice, the female infants being sometimes allowed to live.
In this connection, it is interesting to note that where children are killed
without any other excuse than that they are a drain on the resources of their
parents, it is the female children who are slaughtered. When, however, there
is a so-called religious reason for the infanticide, it is the male child that
suffers.
In India, as we shall see, children were frankly killed for economic reasons;
but here too there are evidences of the sacrifice theory. Up to the beginning
of the present century, the custom of offering a first-born child to the
Ganges was common. A custom akin to this was that of the Ganga Jatra, the
murder of sick relatives on the banks of the sacred river. As late as 1812, a
mother and sister burned a leper at Katwa near Calcutta, their excuse being
that by so doing he would be given a pure body in the next world.
Women, too, who had been long barren dedicated their first child, if one
were given them, to Omkar Mandharta.210
Bathing in blood, especially the blood of children, in Northern India was
regarded as a powerful remedy for disease. In 1870, a Mussulman butcher,
losing his child, was told by a Hindu conjurer that in order to make the next
child healthy, he should wash his wife in the blood of a boy, with the result

that a child was murdered. At Muzaffar Nagar a child was killed and the
blood drunk by a barren woman.211
In the city of Saugor in India, human sacrifices were offered up in the year
1800, when they were stopped by the local governor, Assa Sahib, although
the Brahmin priests objected strenuously to the innovation. Outside the city,
there was a spot where the young men sacrificed themselves in order to
fulfil the vows of their mothers. The belief was that when a woman was
without a child, she could overcome barrenness by promising her first-born,
if a male, to the god of destruction, Mahadea. If a boy was born after this
vow, she concealed from him the vow until he attained the age of puberty,
when it was his duty to obey his mother’s call and throw himself, at the
annual fair on the sandstone hills, from a perpendicular height of four or
five hundred feet and be dashed to pieces upon the rocks below.212
Among the Banjarilu, a caste of travelling traders noted in “Bhadrachellam
and Rekapalli Taluquas,”213 the custom in former years was, before starting
off on a business journey, to procure a little child and bury it in the ground
up to its shoulders. Then the traders would drive their loaded bullocks over
the victim and in proportion as the bullocks “thoroughly trampled the child
to death” was their belief in a successful journey increased. Probably very
little credence can be given to their assertions that they have completely left
off such cruelties.
The Chinese philosopher, Mih Tsze, who lived about the fourth century
before Christ, wrote that there existed at one time in China a state called
Kai-muh, where it was the custom to kill and devour the eldest brother as an
offering to the gods.214
We come now to the results of recent excavations in Palestine.
There were discovered at Gezer, the bodies of adults that had been
sacrificed at foundation rites and deposited with the corner-stones much as
moderns deposit mementoes and newspapers. Mr. MacAlister, who had
charge of the excavations at Gezer, says, however, that adult or adolescent
victims were rare in comparison with the number of infants or very young
children whose remains were found under the corners of houses. Such
deposits were found in all the Semitic strata but were very rare in the
Hellenistic stratum, showing that the practice died down when the Greeks

came into control of the land. The children sacrificed at these foundation
rites were deposited in the same manner as those found at the messobath or
high place, where there was discovered a cemetery of jar-buried infants that
went to show how general was the practice of sacrificing their new-born
infants among the Canaanites.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FOUND IN A CHILD’S GRAVE, AT TELL
TA’ANNEK

(REPRODUCED FROM “DENKSCHRIFTEN DER KAISERLICHEN
AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFT”)

“That these sacrificed infants were the first-born, devoted in the Temple, is
indicated by the fact that none were over a week old. This seems to show
that the sacrifices were not offered under stress or any special calamity, or
at the rites attaching to any special season of the year. The special
circumstance which led to the selection of these infants must have been
something inherent in the victims themselves, which devoted them to
sacrifice from the moment of their birth. Among various races, various

circumstances are regarded as sufficient reason for infanticide—deformity,
the birth of twins, etc.; but among the Semites the one cause most likely to
have been effective was primogeniture.”215
In the vessels in which the infants were placed, were found by the
excavators smaller vessels which were probably food vessels with a
viaticum for the victim.
At Ta’Annek216 after the discoveries at Gezer, a cemetery containing some
twenty infants, also buried in jars, was discovered about a rock altar, the age
of the infants that had been sacrificed having been as much as five years. At
Megiddo217 underneath a corner of a temple, there were found four jars
with the bones of children and near them smaller jars and a bowl, which
undoubtedly contained the food that children were supposed to need in the
other world. Professor Sellin suggests that the bones found at Tell Ta’Annek
may have been the bones of children that had died too young to be buried in
the family sepulchres, but the burden of evidence suggests a different
explanation. Here, then, we have a double reason for the sacrifice of the
children, for the foundation sacrifices were—one might almost say are, so
recently have there been instances of the practice—of a different order from
the sacrifice of the first-born.
On these foundation sacrifices, Dr. Driver has made some interesting notes.
We are all familiar with our own foundation ceremonies, which are really
nothing more or less than a modification of these primitive ceremonies that
consisted almost entirely of the sacrifice of a human being and in many
instances of an infant, inasmuch as the infant, having just come into the
world, was purer and nearer to god and therefore more acceptable. Traces of
the custom of sacrificing a human life in order that some destructive god or
demon might be propitiated and the lives of those about to occupy the
building thereby made safer are found in India, New Zealand, China, Japan,
Mexico, Germany, and Denmark.
The extent of these foundation sacrifices had been revealed by Dr. Trumbull
in his Threshold Covenant, all going to show that different branches of the
human family, though far removed, mounted much the same steps in their
endeavour to achieve the truth about the world in which they lived.
Among the Danes, when the fortifications were first being built around
Copenhagen many years ago, the walls, as they were built, kept sinking in,

and it did not seem possible that they would ever stand firmly.
“The workmen finally took a little girl, placed her at a table, and gave her
play toys and sweetmeats. Then, as she sat there enjoying herself, the
masons built an arch over her and in this way the walls were made
solid.”218
A similar story is told219 of a castle of Liebenstein. It was made fast and
impregnable by buying a child from its mother and walling it in.
Slavensk, a Slavonic town on the Danube, had been devastated by the
plague and when it was built anew the wise men of the town agreed that
there must be a human victim. Messengers were sent out before sunrise to
seize the first living creature they met. The victim was a child and it was
buried alive under the foundation stone of the citadel, and from that time
on, a citadel was called a Dyetinet, from Dyetina220, a child.
In Africa in Galam, Tylor says221 that a boy and a girl were buried alive
before the gate of the city in order to make it impregnable. In other places,
such as Great Bassam and Yarriba, such sacrifices were usual even when
the foundation was only that of a house.
In some places, such as among the Tantis of Africa, the sacrifice was made
at every new moon. In Sargos, a girl was offered up that there might be
good crops. In Bonny, they sacrificed every year a beautiful virgin to Juju
that the evil spirits might be kept away.
“The connection between cannibalism and human sacrifice,” says Dr.
Waitz, “is manifest enough in the festivals of Dahomey.”222
There were two principal and solemn sacrifices among the Pipiles, a Maya
people in Central America—one at the commencement of summer and one
at the beginning of winter. Little boys of ten and twelve years of age were
the victims, and their blood was sprinkled in the direction of the four
cardinal points.223
Among the Milanau Dyaks when the largest house was being erected, a
deep hole was dug and a slave girl was placed in it. An enormous timber
was then allowed to descend on her and crush her to death.224

As late as 1843 in Germany, when a new bridge was being built at Halle,
the common people fancied that a child was wanted to be walled into the
foundations. According to Grimm, the tower called the Reichenfels Castle
was built on a live child and a projecting stone marks the place. If that were
pulled out, the wall, it is said, would tumble down.225
According to a Servian legend, three hundred masons laboured for three
years at the foundation stones of Scutari, but what they built by day, the Vila
tore down at night. At last she made known to the kings that the place
would never be finished until two brothers or sisters “of like name” were
built into the foundations. Nowhere could such be found. Then the Vila
required that one of the wives of the kings should be walled up in the
ground. The next day the consort of the youngest king, never dreaming of
such a decree, brought out some dinner to the workmen; thereupon the three
hundred masons dropped their stones around her and began to wall her in.
At her entreaty, they left a small opening and there she continued to suckle
her babe who was held up to her once a day.226
The foundation sacrifice is well known in India. At Madras, it has long been
a tradition that when the fort was first built a girl was built into it to render
it impregnable.227 A Raja was once building a bridge over the river Jargo at
Chunar and when it fell down several times, he was advised to sacrifice a
Brahman girl to the local deity. She has now become the Mari or ghost of
the place and is regularly worshipped in time of trouble. In Kumaun, there
are professional kidnappers known as Doqhutiya, or two-legged beasts of
prey, who go about capturing boys that they may be used in foundation
sacrifices.
Up to 1867, when a house was built among the Tlinkits tribe in Alaska, the
relatives and friends of the chief or wealthy man were invited to appear on
the spot that he had chosen for the site. Addressing them at great length, he
referred with pride to the various deeds of his ancestors and promised to so
conduct himself as to shed more lustre on the family name. The space for
the house was then cleared, a spot for the fireplace designated, and four
holes dug wherein the corner posts were to be set. A slave, or the
descendant of a slave who had been captured in war, was then blind-folded
and compelled to lie down face uppermost on the spot selected for the
fireplace. A sapling was then cut, laid across the throat of the slave, and, at a

given signal, the two nearest relatives of the house sat upon the respective
ends of the sapling, thereby choking the wretch to death.228

CHAPTER X
HEBREW WRITERS ON THE ORIGIN OF THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY—CHILD
SACRIFICE CONDEMNED IN THE STORY OF ISAAC—CIRCUMCISION
SUBSTITUTED—REVERSION TO BARBARIC HABITS IN CANAAN—TRIUMPH OF
THE PROPHETS.

H AVING reviewed the ethnological and archæological aspect of the
attitude of the Semitic people toward the sacrifice of the first-born, we
turn to the written record of the small bands of Semites who gave to
the world the humane ideas that dominate it today. From that written record
we will learn that nowhere among the civilization of the world was there the
same spirit that there was in that outlandish corner of Syria. Israel was
never content with the abuses of the world and in this her philosophy
differed from Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Indian
philosophies as we have been able to judge of them in the writing of the
civilizations they produced. If, to make one more comparison, the Greeks
were wanting in humanity the Israelites were passionately human. “The
Israelitish prophets were impetuous writers such as we of the present day
should denounce as socialists and anarchists. They were fanatics in the
cause of social justice.”229
Modern Bible criticism has made the period of the writing of the Elohistic
part of the Hexateuch about 770 b. c.230 Whatever the sources that were
drawn on and whatever actual historical value they have, we know that the
ideas contained therein represent the ideas of the eighth century b. c.231
According to these writings, Abraham, the eponymic father of the Israelites,
was tested in his loyalty to Yahweh by being told to take his son Isaac into
the land of Moriah, a district in Palestine, and there sacrifice him as a burnt
offering. In the land of Canaan at the time the Jahvist and the Elohist wrote
of this temptation, the ceremony of sacrificing the first-born of a living
thing was still practised; among the neighbouring peoples—the Phœnicians
on one side and the Sabeans on the south-east—children were still
sacrificed. The Elohist therefore was anxious to show that a thousand or
more years back, in the time of the founder of their race, it was not the
custom of the tribe to sacrifice children and that it was only done when the
Lord gave the especial command.

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

(FROM A PAINTING BY J. S. COPLEY, R. A.)

With Abraham the command, while painful, was apparently not surprising.
He went about the execution in a businesslike way, only to find when he
was about to sacrifice the boy, that the Lord was satisfied with his display
of zeal and did not intend the command to be carried out. Then “Abraham
lifted up his eyes, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his

horns: and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt
offering in the stead of his son.”232
Here was the first case of substitution, in which the early writer testifies that
not only was the substitution satisfactory to the deity, but the human
sacrifice was forbidden and an animal providentially provided that the
ceremony of sacrifice might be gone through without loss of human blood.
However strong the popular inclination to accept the bloody rites of the
religion of the surrounding tribes, from that time there was a fixed standard
to which the prophets and true believers of Israel held—human sacrifice
had been stopped by the Lord himself.
Among the Assyrians also, father Orhan was represented as having
substituted an animal for human beings, the Assyrian patriarch being
represented as a man of benevolent aspect, seated in an armchair without
any sort of military pomp or circumstance.233
To make the substitution of an animal for a human being more effective,
and more popular, Abraham entered into a covenant with Yahweh by which
the deity was still given the blood of humans without a life being sacrificed.
The rite of circumcision is the substitution commanded by Yahweh himself:
“This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and thee, and thy
seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”234
This rite, mixed as it is with phallic worship (see Genesis), had its origin in
the castration of prisoners of war,235 and, as far as the Israelites were
concerned, probably originated in Egypt,236 although it has been found to
be performed among the tribes of Central Australia with a stone knife just
as is recorded of the Israelites. With progress and the fact that use was
found for prisoners, castration gave way to marking the prisoners, until the
original significance passing, as among the Egyptians according to
Herodotus, the practice became one of purely hygienic value.
That this covenant with Yahweh was kept when all about them the first-born
children of the Egyptians were sacrificed, the feast of the Passover (from
‫חטם‬, pesach, meaning “to pass by, to spare”) attests. Yahweh told Moses
that he was to claim the lives of not only the first-born of the Egyptians
“from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of
the captive that was in the dungeon,” but also the first-born of all the

animals in the land. That the chosen people might not suffer in this
contemplated destruction they were instructed, through Moses, to take the
blood of a lamb, “a male of the first year,” and “strike it on the two side-
posts and on the upper door-post of the houses,” that it might be known
wherein the faithful dwelt.

A NOTABLE CASE OF ABANDONMENT—THE FINDING OF MOSES

(AFTER PAINTING BY SCHOPIN)

Here we see the beginning of the threshold sacrifice or covenant, which
became, in time, the foundation sacrifice.
So complete was this claiming of the first-born that “there was not a house
where there was not one dead.”237
From their deliverance from this visitation, Yahweh instructed Moses to
“sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth the womb among
the children of Israel; both of man and beast, it is mine.” Already there was
the example of the patriarch Abraham that an animal might be substituted;
now there was the statement from the One on high that the first-born of the
chosen people might be redeemed. Of the temper of the people at this time

and their proneness to fall into the vices of their neighbours, and of idolatry,
we need only the statement of Joshua238 that while in Egypt—Renan says
that they were not there more than three hundred years—they acquired the
habit of worshipping false gods.
The speedy fall from grace, as shown by the worship of the golden calf
while Moses was away from them for a short time, is another evidence of
their excitability, although modern scientists have declared that under
adverse circumstances the entire civilized peoples would revert to barbarity
in three generations.
The struggle upward out of barbarism could have been attended with
nothing less than herculean belief on the part of the leaders of Israel, when
we see this lapse came after their miraculous escape from Egypt and after
the receipt of the ten commandments. Illuminating too is the fact that the
making of the golden calf was superintended by no less a person than
Aaron, the brother of Moses, his confidant and first lieutenant.
When we come to the period of the Judges, we find the Israelites falling
away from their humanitarianism. While Joshua and his contemporaries
were alive, they held to their religion, but the gods of Canaan, together with
the more easily understood and more deeply ingrained rites of idolatry,
reappeared as soon as the patriarchs had passed away.
Nothing indeed is more interesting in this study of the Old Testament than
the record of the difficulty that the leaders and prophets had in keeping a
semi-barbarous people up to their standard of civilization and
humanization. Ethnological and archæological data picture the struggle
forward but feebly, when compared to the written records of the Israelites,
especially during the period of the Judges.
The period of the Judges was the period of the formation of the nation, and
had there not been all around them reminders of their own previous
nomadic habits, and had they been a less excitable people, there would not
have been the recurrence to barbaric traits that we find. Even then, the
progress of the Israelites in humanitarianism is unique in the world. From
the settlement in Canaan, which was about 1200 b. c., until the birth of
Christ, they suffered conquest, disintegration, and many afflictions, but
progressed steadily in humanitarianism. In that time the Greeks rose and
fell, achieving great intellectual and æsthetic perfection, but failing to even

approach the Israelites in humanity. A few hundred years after the
settlement in Canaan, the Romans appear as a civilized people and, aided
by a transplanted stoicism, developed a great humanitarianism under the
Emperors Trajan and Hadrian; the last named, however, despite his
greatness, indissolubly linked with the degeneracy that was the mark of
Greek self-centredness, or lack of humanity, as Mahaffy calls it.
The transition from idealism to nationalism is never affected with impunity,
says Renan, and so the growing nation suffered in its material growth and
through the insistence that Yahweh “loved Israel and hated all the rest of the
world.”239 Baal and Yahweh were not far apart and at Sechem there was a
Baal-berith, or Baal covenant, which the idolators worshipped as Baal, and
the Israelites as Yahweh.240 “If the religion of Israel had not gone beyond
this phase, it is certainly the last religion to which the world would have
rallied.”241
It is in this period that we have the story of Jephthah, an outcast, the head of
banditti and an illegitimate son, who was asked by the Israelites of Gilead
to help them against the Ammonites. Jephthah vowed that if he should be
successful he would sacrifice to Yahweh the first thing that met him on his
return from the campaign, and the first thing to meet him was his daughter.
“And he sent her away for two months and she went with her companions
and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass that at
the end of two months that she returned unto her father who did with her
according to the vow which he had vowed.”242
It is suggested by Renan that what probably happened was that Jephthah,
before undertaking a difficult war, sacrificed one of his daughters according
to the barbarous custom put into practice on solemn occasions when the
country was in danger. “Patriarchal deism,” he says, “had condemned these
immolations; Yahwehism with its exclusively national principle was rather
favourable to them. Not many human sacrifices were offered to God nor to
the Elohim. The gods whom they thought to propitiate by means of human
sacrifices were the patriot gods, Camos of the Moabites, Moloch of the
Canaanites, Melqarth of Carthage.”243
The coming of David was the triumph of Yahweh over the contending
religions, though, as modern critics have pointed out, there was little
humanitarianism in the semi-barbarous poet. When there was a three years’

famine in the land it was ascribed to the wrong done the Gibeonites by Saul
and the Gibeonites were allowed to say what should be the sacrifice to
atone for the wrong. The ancient historian records the fact that they asked
that they might be allowed to hang the seven sons of Saul, and this was
done. The sacrifice was asked for by the Gibeonites and it was for the
purpose of ending the famine, but, incidentally, it enabled David to get rid
of those who stood in his way.244
A few hundred years later, in the ninth century, we find the effect of the
sacrifice of the first-born telling on the Israelites even though at that time it
is evident that they themselves have given up human sacrifice. Jehoram,
King of Israel, and Jehosophat, King of Judah, united to defeat the
remarkable King of Moab, Mesha. The combined forces drove him within
his strong fortifications of Kir-Haraseth and when he found that there was
no way of escape, as a last resort:
“He took his eldest son, that should have reigned in his stead, and offered
him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And they [the Israelites] departed
from him and returned to their own land.”
The efficacy of the sacrifice is hereby admitted although it was offered to
Camos and not to Yahweh. The ancient historian says nothing in
extenuation of the effect. Ewald suggests that Yahweh, full of bitterness245
against Israel for having driven the King of Moab to such a deed of fearful
bravery, filled the army full of terror. Renan, however, suggests that though
they did not then offer human sacrifices themselves, the Israelites still had
the fullest faith in their efficacy and retired lest they be defeated.
Coming nearer, to a period that is contemporaneous with that which is
revealed in the excavations at Gezer and Tell Ta’Annek, we have the direct
statement in Kings and Chronicles246 that Ahaz, the eleventh King of Judah
(about 741 to 725 b. c.), “made his son pass through the fire.” To gain the
aid of Tiglath-Pileser against the Edomites and the Philistines he became a
vassal of the Assyrian monarch and his name appears among the names of
those who acknowledged his sovereignty and paid tribute.
Manasseh was another King of Judah (697 to 642 b. c.) who sacrificed his
son,247 emulating Ahaz in this as in other heathenish customs, increasing
the popularity of the foreign gods and causing the streets of Jerusalem to

run with the blood of the prophets whom he put to death. In every way he
tried to make the heathen religions more acceptable and accessible to the
whole nation by providing them with temples and altars. In addition to
sacrificing one of his own sons to Moloch, he revived that religion on a
large scale, building for it a magnificent burning place (Tophet) in the
valley of Hinnom on the southern wall of Jerusalem. The tortures to which
the children were subjected soon associated themselves in the minds of the
pious with what punishment beyond the grave must be like, so that the
name of hell itself was taken from this valley, Ge-Hinnom.248
With the reforms of Josiah we hear no more of such treatment of children
but we must not suppose that while barbarous practices were going on the
prophets had remained silent. The latter day writers revolted against the
entire idea of sacrifice, Hosea declaring: “I desired mercy and not sacrifice;
and the knowledge of Yahweh more than burnt offerings.”249 Jeremiah even
declared that the Lord had not commanded the people to sacrifice when
they came forth from Egypt:
“For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or
sacrifices.”250
To Micah, however, it was reserved to express in those early days the
vigorous protest that was to become the ethical keynote of the future
religion:
“Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high
God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year
old?
“Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand
rivers of oil? Shall I give my first son for my transgression, the fruit of my
body for the sin of my soul?
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require
of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy
God?”251

CHAPTER XI
ANCIENT ARABIANS WERE CANNIBALISTIC—DAUGHTERS TOO EXPENSIVE TO
REAR—CONDITIONS BEFORE THE COMING OF THE PROPHET—THE
INJUNCTIONS OF MOHAMMED—HIS LAW AS FOUND IN “AL HIDAYA.”

O F the one remaining tribe of the Semites, a name that has meant so
much to the civilization of the world, it is hardly necessary to offer a
prelude. Coming, however, in the mouth of the defenders of the latest
religion and as the youngest of the Semitic languages, it is necessary to say
of the Arabic language that it is nearer akin than any of the others to the
original archetype, the Ursemitisch, from which they are all derived; “just
as the Arabs, by reason of their geographical situation and the monotonous
uniformity of the desert life, have, in some respects, preserved the Semitic
character more purely and exhibited it more distinctly than any people of
the same family.”252
Arabic history divides itself into three periods, first the Sabean and
Himyarite period, from 800 b. c., the date of the oldest south Arabic
inscription; second, the Pre-Islamic period, 500 to 622 a. d.; and third, the
Mohammedan period, beginning with the Flight, or Hijra (or Hegira). Of
the first periods the little that we know except the inscriptions coming to us
by tradition is preserved in the Pre-Islamic poems and the Koran.253
The second period is known as the Jahiliyya, or Age of Ignorance or
Barbarism, and, in the ample remnant of the poetry of that day, we are
enabled “to picture the life of those wild days in its larger aspects,
accurately enough.”254
The pagan Arabs had long been in the habit of burying their infant
daughters alive, the excuse offered being that it cost too much to marry
them and that their lives were too closely attended with the possibility of
disgrace “if they should happen to be made captives or to become
scandalous by their behaviour.”255 For these reasons there was never any
disguising the fact that the birth of a daughter was considered a great
misfortune and the death of one a great happiness.
According to one authority, the method employed by the Arabs to get rid of
the female infant was to have the mother who was about to give birth to a

child lie down by a pit when she was about to deliver the child, and if it was
a daughter, it was thrown into the pit without any more ado.256
Another version is that when a daughter was born the father, if he intended
to keep her, would have her clothed in a garment of wool or hair as an
indication that later he intended to have her keep camels or sheep in the
desert. If, on the other hand, he intended to do away with her, he would
allow her to live until she was six years of age, and then said to her mother:
“Perfume her and adorn her, that I may carry her to her mothers.”
This being done, he led her to a well or pit that had previously been dug for
that purpose, pushed her into it, and then, filling the pit, levelled it with the
rest of the ground. It does not seem that the latter practice could have been
other than rare.
Al Mostatraf is quoted by Sale as saying that these practices were common
throughout Arabia, and that the tribes of Koreish and Kendah were
particularly notorious in this respect. The members of the former tribe were
in the habit of burying their daughters alive in Mount Abu Dalama, near
Mecca.
Among the Pre-Islamitic Arabians, the people of Tamim were noted for
their addiction to this practice and claimed, in after years, that it was
brought about by the action of their chief, Qays, who was a contemporary
of the Prophet. According to this story, Moshamraj the Yashkorite
descended on the camp of Qays and carried off, among other women, the
daughter of the sister of Qays. This captive was assigned to the son of
Moshamraj, and when her uncle appeared to ransom her, she declined to
leave her new-found husband. Qays was so incensed over this action that,
on returning home, he is said to have killed all of his daughters by burying
them alive, and never thereafter allowed another daughter to live.
During his absence some time later, his wife gave birth to a daughter, and
knowing the feeling of the father she sent the infant to some relatives to
have the child raised in secrecy. When Qays returned home she told him
that she had given birth to a dead child.
Years after, when the child had grown up, she came to visit her mother and
while the two were together they were discovered by Qays.

“I came in,” related Qays himself to Mohammed, “and saw the girl; her
mother had plaited her hair, and put rings in the side locks and strung them
with sea shells and put on a chain of cowries, and given her a necklace of
dried dates. I said:
“‘Who is this pretty girl?’ and her mother wept and said:
“‘She is your daughter’; and told me how she had saved her alive.
“So I waited until the mother ceased to be anxious about her; then I led her
out one day, dug a pit and laid her in it, she crying:
“‘Father, what are you doing with me?’
“Then I covered her up with the earth and still she cried:
“‘Father, are you going to bury me? Are you going to leave me alone and go
away?’ But I went on filling in the earth till I could hear her cries no longer,
and that is the only time that I felt any pity when I buried a daughter.”257
There were others however before Qays who did not take this attitude
toward children. Sa’sa’a, the grandfather of the poet Al-Farazdac,
frequently redeemed female children that were about to be buried alive.
Inasmuch as he too was of the tribe of Tamim his action would indicate that
Qays was not an innovator. In order to save them he was obliged to buy
them off and the price he paid every time was two she-camels, big with
young, and one he-camel.258
Boasting of this humane action on the part of his ancestor (who was the
François Villon of his day) Al-Farazdac vauntingly declared one day before
the Khalifs of the family of Omayya:
“I am the son of the giver of life to the dead.”
When he was reproved for this boasting he justified it by quoting the Koran:
“He who saveth a soul alive shall be as if he had saved the souls of all
mankind.”259
The Aghani explains the practice on the ground of poverty and credits
Sa’sa’a with being the first one to attempt to put an end to the practice.
Thereafter this humane grandparent of a vagabond poet was known as

Muhiyyu’l-Maw’udat, or “He who brings buried girls to life.” According to
the Kamil he saved as many as one hundred and eighty daughters.260
That infanticide was rare in the desert is the claim made by defenders of the
faith. The following verses are quoted by Lane as going to show that the
Arabs really had a tender feeling toward their women and their children;
and that infanticide, which is commonly attributed to the whole Arab nation
of every age before Islam, was in reality exceedingly rare in the desert, and
after almost dying out only revived about the time of Mohammed. It was
probably adopted by poor and weak clans, either from inability to support
their children, or in order to protect themselves from the stain of having
their children dishonoured by stronger tribes, and the occasional practice of
this barbarous and suicidal custom affords no ground for assuming an
unnatural hatred and contempt for girls among the ancient Arabs. These
verses of a father to his daughter tell a different story:
If no Umaymah were there, no want would trouble my soul, no labour call me to toil for bread
through pitchiest night;
What moves my longing to live is but that well do I know how low the fatherless lies, how hard the
kindness of kin.
I quake before loss of wealth lest lacking fall upon her, and leave her shieldless and bare as flesh set
forth on a board.
My life she prays for, and I from mere love pray for her death—yea, death, the gentlest and kindest
guest to visit a maid.
I fear an uncle’s rebuke, a brother’s harshness for her; my chiefest end was to spare her heart the grief
of a word.

Once more, the following lines do not breathe the spirit of infanticide:
Fortune has brought me down (her wonted way) from station great and high to low estate;
Fortune has rent away my plenteous store: of all my wealth, honour alone is left.
Fortune has turned my joy to tears: how oft did Fortune make me laugh with what she gave!
But for these girls, the Kata’s downy brood, unkindly thrust from door to door as hard,
Far would I roam and wide to seek my bread in earth that has no lack of breadth and length;
Nay, but our children in our midst, what else but our hearts are they walking on the ground?
If but the wind blow harsh on one of them, mine eye says no to slumber all night long.261

That the custom was deep-rooted when Mohammed arrived on the scene is
evident from the fact that Ozaim the Fazarite, according to Abu Tamman,
when he decided to save his daughter Lacita, had to conceal that fact from
his people, although she was his only child.262
Hunger and famine were undoubtedly the main causes of the practice of
getting rid of the female children, although according to Porphyry a boy

was sacrificed at Dumat-al Jandal263 and other Arabs sacrificed a virgin
annually.
The cannibalistic strain is re-occurring. In the year 378 a. d. a body of
Saracens attacking the Goths before Constantinople gave an example of this
side of the Arabs.
“Both the Goths and the Saracens were parting on equal terms,” says
Ammianus Marcellinus, when “a strange and unprecedented incident gave
the final advantage to the eastern warriors; for one of them with long hair,
naked—with the exception of a covering around his waist,—shouting a
hoarse and melancholy cry, drew his dagger and plunged into the middle of
the Gothic host, and after he had slain an enemy, put his lips to his throat
and sucked his blood. The barbarians [the Goths] were terrified at this
marvellous prodigy and from that time forth when they proceeded on any
enterprise, displayed none of their former and usual ferocity, but advanced
with hesitating steps.”264
The last line almost leads one to believe that the wily Arab might have been
impelled not so much by the cannibalistic strain as by cunning and
generalship.
Procopius, in his account of the wars of Justinian, speaks of the far-off
Saracens as anthropophagous,265 and according to one Arabian authority at
Medina they licked the blood of the man who had been killed in blood
revenge. Another custom coming undoubtedly from cannibalistic times is
the vow of the mother to drink wine from the skull of the slayer of her
son.266
These were the conditions that Mohammed undoubtedly ended by his
preaching.
“Come, I will rehearse that which your Lord hath forbidden ye; that is to
say that ye be not guilty of idolatry and that ye show kindness to your
parents and that ye murder not your children for fear lest ye be reduced to
poverty: we will provide for you and them; and draw not near unto heinous
crimes, neither openly nor in secret slay the soul which God hath forbidden
you to slay unless for a just cause.”267
This, Jalal-ad-din says, was revealed at Medina:

“By God, ye shall surely be called to account for that which ye have falsely
devised. They attributed daughters unto God but unto themselves children
of the sex which they desire. And when any of them is told the news of the
birth of a female, his face becometh black, and he is deeply afflicted: he
hideth himself from the people, because of the ill tidings which have been
told him; considering within himself whether he shall keep it with disgrace,
or whether he shall bury it in the dust.”268
And again he says: “Kill not your children for fear of being brought to
want: we will provide for them and for you: verily, killing them is a great
sin.” And finally he says: “When the sun shall be folded up; and when the
stars shall fall; and when the mountains shall be made to pass away; and
when the camels ten months gone with young shall be neglected; and when
the wild beasts shall be gathered together; and when the seas shall boil; and
when the souls shall be joined again to their bodies; and when the girl who
hath been buried alive shall be asked for what crime she was put to
death.”269
Wherever the Arab went, he carried his religion and his law. And,
bloodthirsty as he was in war, it is to his credit that much was done to check
infanticide wherever the Mussulman reigned. The extent to which the law
on children was regulated by the Arabs at a time when Europe was in
darkness may be seen in “Al Hidaya,” by Shaykh Burhan-ad-din Ali, who
died A.H. 591 and was, according to his contemporaries, a distinguished
author on jurisprudence.
The Hidaya consists of extracts from a number of the great works on
Mussulman jurisprudence in which the authorities on different opinions are
set forth together with reasons for preferring any one adjudication.270 In this
work an entire book is devoted to the Laqeets, which, it is explained,
signified, in the primitive sense, anything lifted from the ground, but later
came to mean an abandoned child, and, in the law of the Arab, had come to
mean a child that had been cast out from fear of poverty or for other
reasons.271
Here it is stated that, when the finder sees a Laqeet under circumstances
which suppose that if it is not taken up it may perish, it is not only
praiseworthy to adopt a child, but it is incumbent.

Coming centuries after Christ, it is noteworthy to observe that Mohammed
was able to instil into his followers such humane doctrines as the freedom
of the foundling and its maintenance from the funds drawn from the public
treasury at a time when the Christians of Europe were groping vainly as to
the proper treatment of infants.
“A foundling is free,” says the Shaykh Burhan-ad-din Ali, “because
freedom is a quality originally inherent in man; and the Mussulman territory
in which the infant is found is a territory of freemen, whence it is also free:
moreover, freemen, in a Mussulman territory, abound more than slaves,
whence the foundling is free, as the smaller number is dependent to the
greater.”272
Christian philosophy offers few more striking mixtures of humanity and
democracy. It was also the law when the foundling was to be maintained,
the expense of bringing up the child was to be paid out of the public
treasury, and in favor of this law the opinion of Omar was cited. A very
good reason given for this was that “where the foundling dies without heirs,
his estate goes to the public treasury.”
The person who took up the foundling was known as a Multaqit and it was
the law of that day that the Multaqit could not exact any return from the
foundling on account of maintenance except where he had been ordered by
the magistrate to bring up the foundling at its own expense, in which case
the maintenance “is a debt upon the foundling, because, the magistrate’s
authority being absolute, he is empowered to exact the return from the
foundling.”273
According to Al-Quduri,274 this was the proper thing to do as the letting out
was regarded as conducive to the education of the Laqeet. In the Jami
Saghir the hiring out of the foundling was opposed on the ground that the
Multaqit had no right to turn the faculties of his foundling to his own
advantage. The opinion of Shaykh Burhan-ad-din Ali was that Al-Quduri
was right and that the child did gain by being let out.
In Al-Siyar there is given a specific injunction that children must not be
slain:
“It does not become Mussulmans to slay women or children or men that are
aged, bed-ridden, or blind, because opposition and fighting are the only

occasions which make slaughter allowable (according to our doctors), and
such persons are incapable of these.”275
In the minute instructions in regard to divorce, much care is given as to the
disposition of a child. Where the husband and wife separate, the law was
that the child went with the mother, and this was based on a decision of the
Prophet.
“It is recorded that a woman once applied to the prophet, saying ‘O, prophet
of God! this is my son, the fruit of my womb, cherished in my bosom and
suckled at my breast, and his father is desirous of taking him away from me
into his own care’; to which the prophet replied, ‘Thou hast a right in the
child prior to that of thy husband, so long as thou dost not marry with a
stranger.’”276
If the mother of an infant died, the right of Hidana, or infant education,
rested with the maternal grandmother. So deeply was this idea imbued that
even if the mother were a hated Zimmi or female infidel subject, married to
a Mussulman, she was still entitled to the Hidana of her child until the time
when the child was capable of forming a judgment with respect to religion.
When such a time arrived the child was generally taken from the mother if
she continued to be an infidel, in order that no injury might come to it from
imbibing the doctrines of a Zimmi.

CHAPTER XII
EXPOSURE BY A CIVILIZED PEOPLE—LACK OF HUMANITY AMONG THE GREEKS—
THEIR MYTHOLOGY AN EVIDENCE—CHILDREN IN HOMER.

T HAT the people of the greatest nation of antiquity, with all their
intellect, their subtlety, their productivity in humanity, art, and moral
ideas, were wanting in heart, is the statement of one of the greatest
scholars of modern times, a scholar who has also earned the right to be
classed among the admirers and defenders of the Greeks.
“Their humanity,” says Mahaffy, “was spasmodic and not constant. Their
kindness was limited to friends and family, and included no chivalry to foes
or to helpless slaves. Antiphon, in speaking of the danger of conviction on
insufficient evidence, mentions the case of the murder of his master by a
slave boy of twelve,”277 and had not the slave-boy murderer revealed by his
actions the fact that he was guilty of the deed, the murdered man’s whole
family would have been put to death on the theory that someone in the
family was guilty of the murder, as the real culprit was too young, under the
law, to be suspected of crime.
The Greek’s kindness did not extend to his new-born children. We shall see
later among the Romans that, from the time of Romulus to the passing of
the Roman Empire, there was an upward tendency in the attitude of the
Romans toward children. In eight centuries, the Romans changed, from a
people indifferent to the fate of the newly-born, to a nation over which the
humane Antonines ruled, and ruled successfully.
Among the Greeks, from the time of Homeric legend, which is supposed to
be about 1000 b. c., up to the time of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, a period of
over a thousand years, the Greeks changed not at all in callous indifference
as to what became of that portion of their population that was daily
exposed. Ardent defenders of the Greeks, like Andrew Lang, see in the fact
that little mention is made in the Homeric legend of the exposure of female
infants, an indication that “Homeric society with its wealth and its
tenderness of heart would not be so cruel” as to expose little girl babies.278
Homer says little of children and the only child to appear directly in the
action of the Iliad is the infant son of Hector and Andromache. “When

Andromache meets Hector as he is hurrying to the field of battle, the nurse
accompanying her carries in her arms the merry-hearted child, whom
Hector called Scamandrius, but the rest called him Astyanax (Defender of
the City), for Hector alone defended Ilium.’”279 It is true that there is no
example of exposure in Homer, though Hephaistos says his mother Hera
desired to conceal him because he was lame.280
But why one should expect a tenderness contrary to the history of the race
is difficult to imagine, especially in view of the picture Achilles offers, as
he drags the slain Hector about the walls of Troy to the lamentations of the
dead man’s father and mother.
Wherever there was a Greek colony we have a story of the exposure of
some god or hero. Greek mythology might also be said to have had, as one
of its foundations, the right of the parent to reject its offspring. The Dorians
of Crete pictured even mighty Jove as a victim of this practice, and as being
suckled by a goat. He was taken as soon as he was born, to Lystus first, the
most ancient city of Crete, and then:
“Hid in a deep cave, ’neath the recesses of the divine earth in the dense and
wooded Ægean mount.”281
Among the Mantineians it was said that when Rhea brought forth Poseidon
she delivered him “in a sheep cote to be brought up among the lambs.”282
Among the Lemnians, Hephaistos was supposed to have been exposed,283
as was the Dionysus of the Etolians and the Thracians.
In Epidaurus it is said that Coronis, when she gave birth to Æsculapius,
“exposed the infant on that mountain which at present they call Titthion, but
which was before denominated Myrtion; the name of the mountain being
changed, because the infant was suckled by one of those goats which fed
upon the mountain.”284
In Argos, when Crotopos reigned, a grandson was born to him, but the
infant’s mother, fearing the wrath of her father, “exposed the child to perish.
In consequence of this, it happened that the infant was torn to pieces by the
dogs that guarded the royal cattle.”285
In Arcadia, Auge, when she was delivered of Telephus, “concealed him in
the mountain Parthenion, and he was there suckled by a hind.”286

In his disappointment at not having a son born to him, Jasus had the
Arcadian Atalanta exposed on the Parthenian hill287; the ancestor of all the
Athenians, Ion, and the founders of Thebes, Amphion, and Zethus, were
exposed on the same Mount Citharion where Œdipus was exposed.
Amphion afterward married Niobe and their twelve children, six boys and
six girls, were killed by Apollo.288
Perhaps we can best judge the attitude of the Homeric Greeks toward
children by the later point of view of the flower of Greek intellect. There is
not a line in Plato to indicate that the practices we regard as so
reprehensible were at all abhorrent to him. In fact, there are passages that
would indicate that he not only regarded infanticide as inevitable, but as
unobjectionable; and in any case, the incidental references to the practices
of his day show that the matter was one that had given him no concern and
had not disturbed his philosophic calm. Thus, Plato has Socrates say in the
Theætetus289:
“Then this child, however he may turn out, which you and I have with
difficulty brought into the world. And now that he is born, we must run
round the hearth with him, and see whether he is worth rearing, or is only a
wind-egg and a sham. Is he to be reared in any case, and not exposed? or
will you bear to see him rejected, and not get into a passion if I take away
your first-born?”
And in another place, Socrates emphasizes not the sacredness of the life of
the child, but the material advantages that accrued to its progenitors290:
“Must we not then, first of all, ask whether there is any one of us who has
knowledge of that about which we are deliberating? If there is, let us take
his advice, though he be one only, and not mind the rest; if there is not, let
us seek further counsel. Is this a slight matter about which you and
Lysimachus are deliberating? Are you not risking the greatest of your
possessions? For children are your riches; and upon their turning out well or
ill depends the whole order of their father’s house.”
Is it true that, aside from the laws of Gortyna, which were excavated in
1884 on the island of Crete,291 and the injunctions of Lycurgus, as given to
us by Plutarch, we have no positive declaration as to the attitude of the
legislator in reference to children; but what is lacking in positive legislation

is made up by the plethora of literary allusions, going to show a condition
singularly heartless. It is interesting to note that the laws of Gortyna, which
represent a period of civilization about 500 years before Christ, are not as
humane as the law ascribed to Romulus by Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
though the Greek laws are those of a people supposedly more civilized than
the tribes then beginning their history on the Capitoline Hill. There was a
prohibition in the first law ascribed to Romulus: and the extent of the law,
as far as we may presume to judge it, was to urge caution on the people who
were about to destroy their offspring. Under the Roman law, all children
were to be kept for a short time at least, this limiting the power of the father
to kill, whereas the law of Gortyna emphasized the power of the father in
the matter of the life and death of the child; in one specific instance, it gives
the mother direct permission to do away with the infant.
“If a woman bear a child,” so ran the Cretan laws, “while living apart from
her husband (after divorce), she shall carry it to the husband at his house, in
the presence of three witnesses; and if he do not receive the child, it shall be
in the power of the mother either to bring up or expose it. If a female serf
bear a child while living apart, she shall carry it to the master of the man
who married her, in the presence of two witnesses. And if he do not receive
it, the child shall be in the power of the master of the female serf. But, if she
should marry the same man again before the end of the year, the child shall
be in the power of the master of the male serf, and the one who carried it
and the witnesses shall have preference in taking the oath. If a woman
living apart should put away her child before she has presented it as written,
she shall pay, for a free child, fifty staters, for a slave, twenty-five, if she be
convicted.
“But if the man have no house, to which she may carry it, or she do not see
him, if she put away her child, there shall be no penalty. If a female serf
should conceive and bear without being married, the child shall be in the
power of the master of the father.”292
In prehistoric times, the chief of the yevos exercised his right of domain
over his own house, by deciding whether children should be brought up or
exposed. The reason back of this practice was undoubtedly economic: “the
fact of yesterday is the doctrine of today,” says Junius.

The Hellenes in their attitude toward children were as all the Aryan people,
and, with few exceptions, as most primitive people where moral ideas had
little developed; the right of the male parent to kill his child if he so willed
is, with variations, a relic of the Stone Age.
Among the Greeks, the practice was well established, for, wherever we find
a Greek colony, the traditions of the people show that either a notable
human or some mythical god began his history with the story of exposure.
At Athens infanticide was especially common. Aristophanes refers to it in a
way that shows it was an accepted practice. The first poet of humanity,
Euripides, dwells at great length, in the story of Ion, on the exposure of an
infant toward the end of the fifth century; and in “The Phœnician Maidens,”
he has Jocasta tell the story of the exposure of Œdipus293:
Enter Jocasta.
... and when our babe was born,
Ware of his sin, remembering God’s word,
He gave the bane to herdmen to cast forth
In Hera’s Mead upon Cithæron’s ridge,
His ankles pierced clear through with iron spikes,
Whence Hellas named him Swell-foot—Œdipus.

But Polybus’ horse-tenders found him there,
And bare him home, and in their mistress’ hands
Laid. To my travail’s fruit she gave her breast,
Telling her lord herself had borne the babe.
Now, grown to man with golden-bearded cheeks,
My son, divining, or of someone told,
Journeyed, resolved to find his parents, forth
To Phœbus’ fane. Now Laius my lord,
Seeking assurance of the babe exposed,
If he were dead, fared thither.

In the fourth century b. c., the favourite figure in the comedy of the day was
the child that had been exposed and saved, and afterwards found by its
parents. Terence and Plautus afterward used this theme frequently, and
undoubtedly their comedies were all borrowed from the Greek. Strange as it
may seem in the cultured and refined city of Athens with its great
philosophers and its wonderful art, the object of jest was a starving and
dying infant. Glotz, in discussing the motives of this frequent exposure of
infants in Athens, ascribed to the shame of young women an initiatory

prominence. Viewing the subject more broadly, however, we know that
shame really plays a minor part.
More frequently than not, the exposure of the infant was ordered by the
male parent. It was a live question, current and customary, that the father
was obliged to face every time a child was born: would he raise it or would
he expose it? As with all primitive peoples, the child was his absolute
property.294 On the fifth day, the Amphidromia took place. If one interprets
literally the passage in the Theætetus of Plato, one must conclude that this
ceremony for receiving an infant into the house was rigorously followed out
in all cases, and that before the altar of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, the
father finally decided and proclaimed whether he intended to keep the child
and protect it, or to abandon it. On the other hand, a father who did not wish
to recognize his child probably needed no preliminary ceremony for such a
decision; if it was decided to abandon it, there was probably no
Amphidromia.
Doubt as to the paternity of the child, to judge by the history and literature
of the times, was of frequent occurrence and this usually led to exposure.
Agis, King of Sparta, refused to recognize Leotychides, a son born of his
wife.295 In the Hecyra of Terence, the Athenian Pamphile does not wish to
serve as father to an infant of another. Perseria, “having viewed at an
amorous crisis a statue of Andromeda,” conceals her infant from her
husband.296 At Gortyna, the divorced woman had to present her son to her
former husband; if that man did not take it, then the woman had her choice
between nourishing it or exposing it. In most cases, the disavowal of
paternity meant the exposure of the infant.
But the mere fact that the legitimacy of the child was incontestable did not
save it; many Greeks were discouraged by the thought of the care and
trouble children necessitated. Thousands of these little ones seem to have
been resented by the Athenians, with what Glotz calls “singulière
vivacité.”297 With the intensive and complete education necessary for those
reared, some children had to be sacrificed to so complicated and
burdensome an enterprise.
“No,” says a character in Menander, “there is nothing unfortunate in being a
father, unless one is the father of many children.”

“Nothing more foolish than to have children,” says a Greek proverb. “To
raise children is an uncertain thing,” said the philosopher Democritus;
“success is attained only after a life of battle and disquietude. Their loss is
followed by a sorrow which remains above all others.”
It was not necessary to have children, reasoned the nimble-minded
Athenians; many who wished both tranquillity and posterity adopted a
young man whose education was already complete. The greater number of
exposures should not be attributed, however, to this excessive love of
tranquillity. The principal objection to children was their expense. For the
daughter, it was necessary to prepare a dot: for boys, there was the expense
of an education prolonged until they were sixteen or eighteen years of age.
The latter imposed the opening of an account not easy to close.
“I thought my family now large enough,” says the father of Daphnis in
explaining to the new-found son why it was he was exposed.298
“Sons of the very rich,” said Plato, “who commence to frequent schools at a
very early age and leave them late”—the rich themselves did not wish to
bring up too many sons to such an expensive life. The rich father of
Daphnis considered a son and a daughter a large family.
At a pinch, the Athenians would undertake to bring up a first child, but, as a
rule, the second was condemned. It was not for themselves, alone, that this
was done, they claimed: it was also for their children that the heads of the
Greek families dreaded poverty. The direct transmission and equal partition
of property among the male children was part of the Greek law, and a fair-
sized estate, if broken into many parts, made small provision for many
children. Hesiod wished for a single son par famille: “Let there be only one
son to tend his father’s house: for so shall wealth increase in the
dwelling.”299 And Theognis reproached the citizens for having no other
ideal than to bury away treasures for their children. Even in later times,
Xenophon speaks of the paternal foresight that led to continual worrying
over the care of children yet to be born.
It was Diphilus, or Menander, who found in the reality of the Greek life and
communicated it to the author of the Adelphi, this counsel addressed to the
father: “Manage, pinch, and save, to leave them (your sons) as much as you
can.”300

But it was not only the poor who found exposure expedient, although they
had an excuse; they “had not the heart to leave their misery to their progeny
like a grave and dolorous malady.”
To a philosopher of the first century after Christ, it appeared as the greatest
scandal, however, that a number of fathers “who did not have the excuse of
poverty, who were well off and even opulent, should dare to refuse food to
the puny infants in order to enrich their elders, should dare to kill their
brothers in order that the living might have the greater patrimony.”301
This was indeed the Greek excuse or explanation—some of the children had
to be sacrificed that others might be raised. The head of a Greek family, if
asked why he had exposed some of his children, would have probably
answered in the words of the Scythian Anacharsis, “Because I love the
children I have.” This was the principal reason alleged by the Greeks for
exposing their progeny on the highways, and the father of Daphnis, when
he reclaims him, admits this to the son he had exposed.302
In the religious and social ideas of the ancients, the female child was of
little importance—a son alone perpetuating the race. The daughter was
hardly a member of the family in which she was born, from the day of her
birth until the day she was married. On that day, she passed into the
possession of her husband and became his, body and soul. Up to the time
she was married, she was in charge of her parents: after that time, she did
not even exist for them.
On the contrary, it was a sacred duty to bring up a boy. To raise one, was to
provide against all possible trouble; whereas a girl was an expensive luxury,
a sacrifice for which there was no compensation, and for this reason, in the
legend, the father of Atalanta refused to bring up his daughter.
“Do you remember,” asks Sostrata of her husband in the
Heautontimorumenos, “me being pregnant, and yourself declaring to me,
most peremptorily, that if I should bring forth a girl, you would not have it
brought up?”303 Thus it was that Antiphili, although of good family, was
exposed by order of her mother.
One has but to read the fragments of the new comedy to see how the Greeks
plainly preferred boys, and under what various artifices they disclosed their
dislike to girl children.

Half of the Florilegium of Stobius is composed of extracts under the title
—“How much better are male children.” In the first rank, he cites
Euripides, and after him the authors of the new comedy, Menander at the
head. Posidippus indicated crudely the rule of conduct adopted by most
Athenians: “The son is brought up even if one is poor: the daughter is
exposed, even if one is rich.”

CHAPTER XIII
FEMALE CHILDREN NOT DESIRABLE AMONG GREEKS—PRECAUTIONS FOR SAVING
EXPOSED CHILDREN—ORNAMENTS AS A MEANS OF IDENTIFICATION—
ADOPTION UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES.

T HE Greeks who exposed their children hoped, as a rule, they might
possibly be saved by others and precautions were frequently taken to
this end. The gruesome task of doing away with the infant was
generally entrusted to a slave or to a midwife, who were willing, apparently,
to undertake many services.304 The time usually chosen was early in the
day, inasmuch as the child would perish if it passed the entire night without
attracting attention.
The lexicographers and the scholiasts of the time speak of children being
left in deserted places. In the “golden days,” they were placed where they
could be seen. There is evidence that the most frequented places were the
most popular—the hippodromes, the entrances to the temples, and the
sacred grottoes, where they would be most in evidence. A watch was kept
on the place or it was revisited, in order to be sure of the fate of the infant.
Care was usually taken to wrap the child up carefully. When Laymonde, the
shepherd, discovered Daphnis, the child was being suckled by a goat.
“Struck with natural astonishment, he advances closer to the spot and
discovers a lusty and handsome male child with far richer swathing clothes
than suited its fortune in being thus exposed; for its little mantle was of fine
purple, and fastened by a golden clasp; and it had a little sword with a hilt
of ivory.”305
The jests of Aristophanes show that more often children were exposed in
large copper pots with two handles, called kutrai (κυτρἀι). The Athenians
had been in the habit of making sacrifices to some of their divinities in
these kutrai, and it is likely that when children were first abandoned, they
were placed in these receptacles that they might invoke the protection of the
immortals. Recent excavations at Gezer and Tell Ta’Andkk show children
were sacrificed in a similar way.

BLIND BOYS AT DRILL IN “THE LIGHTHOUSE,” NEW YORK CITY

Various objects were placed with the child when it was so exposed. Creusa,
the daughter of Erectheus, King of Athens, when she exposed Ion, the son
whom she had secretly borne to Apollo, “observant of the customs of her
great progenitors,” in addition to leaving with him what ornaments she had,
also added:
A branch of olive then I wreathed around thee,
Plucked from that tree which from Minerva’s rock
First sprung; if it be there it still retains
Its verdure; for the foliage of that olive,
Fresh in immortal beauty, never fades.306

This, and the sacred bandelettes, were always the symbols of inviolability.
This final act of maternal affection, characteristic of both the human and the
barbaric side of Greek parents, became, in time, a widespread custom.
When the child was exposed, there was generally placed alongside of it a
small basket or collection of trinkets. The royal daughter of Erechtheus
attached to the neck of her son many precious ornaments, including a
serpent of massive gold. The shepherd Laymonde found on Daphnis a clasp
of gold and a small ivory sword. Among the very poor, hand-made collars,
shoulder straps, with various trinkets of little worth, were used to mark the
infant.

In all this, dramatists saw but a means to establish the identity of the hero
and heroine and an assistance to the dénouement. The ceremony, with its
pathos and its strangeness, was, to tragic as well as to comic writers, but a
means to end the fifth act. The pity of it all never seems to have occurred to
the Greek mind.
It was rare that the father or the child-mother who renounced the infant had
any real desire to find it when better days came. The real wish was that the
child might be taken up by some stranger before death came and the trinkets
were an inducement to befriend the child.
If, on the other hand, the child should die, the feeling was that these
ornaments would assure for it a happy life on the other side of the Styx.
For this reason the favoured objects of mothers were amulets; and, as in the
case of the serpent placed around the neck of Ion, Creusa hoped to invoke
the aid of Minerva, who had guarded her ancestor, Erichthonius, with two
dragons; the object being to watch over the child’s existence. These
gewgaws were supposed to give the infant exposed all the rights of a
suppliant.
As to how far these ceremonies of supplication were successful, as to how
far they commended the unfortunate infant to the public, is a grave
question. From the religious and literary myths one might imagine that the
greater number of the infants were saved. We read of Hephaistus, nourished
by the Sintians or by Thetis; of Atalanta by a bear; of Zeus and Dionysos,
nursed by the nymphs; the shepherds found and received Telephus,
Amphion, and Œdipus; Ion, by a priestess, and Sirus, by a beggar.
Greek artists frequently show a Satyr holding in his arms a newly-born that
he had found on the road.
Poets of the new comedy delight to represent their heroes, or, more
frequently, their heroines, as people who had gone through the trial of
exposure and were raised by either courtesans, shepherds, or innkeepers. It
is in this way that Menander, among others, shows us Silenium growing up
in the house of Melænis to whom she has been given by the evil woman
who picked her up307; Casina treated as a daughter by the brave
Cleostrata.308
Longus, in this way, brings Daphnis and Chloë into the cabin of a goatherd.

But these examples prove little about the actual conditions, only going to
show the facility of the writers of the time, and Glotz suggests that these
scenes flattered the Athenians, who liked to think of themselves as a
philanthropic people.
Apparently, the first impulse when a child was found was to ignore it, for
the attitude of Athenian society was probably well expressed by Longus
when he said:
“Those who seek paternity are many.”
In fact, the author of Daphnis and Chloë says that when Daphnis was first
seen by the shepherd being suckled by a goat, “Laymonde (the shepherd)
resolved to leave it to its fate, and to carry off only the tokens; but feeling
afterward ashamed at the reflection, that in doing so he should be inferior in
humanity, even to a goat, he waited for the approach of night and then
carried home the infant with the tokens.”309
Old Megacles, the father of Chloë, in the same story seeks to excuse
himself for having exposed his daughter, by a number of bad reasons: he
did not have the means, it was a moment of weakness, he hoped that the
nymphs would take pity on the child: and then, there were so many people
who did not have children, etc. The most interesting of his reasons,
however, is the statement that he had spent his fortune equipping theatrical
choruses!
As a rule, when adoption did take place it was not for the benefit of the
child. In many instances, those who wished to adopt a son waited and
adopted a grown-up one so as not to have the trouble and expense of
educating him.
As set forth in the plays, it was apparently not infrequent that a courtesan
sought to attach a lover, or a wife a husband who was slipping away from
her, by adopting a child and passing it off as her own. It was to this
subterfuge that Silenium, in the Cistellaria of Plautus, owes her life.
Speaking of the incident, the Procuress in the play, says:
“But once upon a time, that girl (Silenium) who has gone hence in tears,
from a lane I carried her off a little child exposed.... I made a present of her
to my friend, this courtesan, who had made mention of it to me that

somewhere I must find for her a boy or a girl, just born, that she herself
might pass it off as her own.
“As soon as ever the opportunity befell me I immediately granted her
request in that which she had asked me. After she had received this female
child from me, she at once was brought to bed of the same female child
which she had received from me.... She said that her lover was a
foreigner.”310
It is hardly likely, however, that many courtesans in real life were willing to
be so encumbered, and perhaps, as Demosthenes says, this was only the sort
of thing one “sees in tragedies,” like the fatal and convenient malady
described by Heine as a sort of “fifth act sickness.”
That the substitution of foundlings and exposed children was frequent in
Greece is evident, however, from the many plays bearing this name.
Cratinus the younger was the author of a piece called The Substituted Child
[ὑποβολιμάιος], and the title was also used by Menander. Athenæus quotes
from a play by Alexis entitled The Suppositious Child311 and from one by
Epinicus called the Suppositious Damsels [ὑποβολλομενᾶι] and from312
another by Crobylus called the Pseudo-Suppositious Child (Falsus
suppositus).313
In the Thesmophoriazusæ, Aristophanes depicts the father of Euripides,
Mnesilochus, as making a tactless defence of his son-in-law at the festival
of Thesmophoria by abusing the very women he would placate.
“And I know another woman,” he says “who for ten days said she was in
labour, till she purchased a little child while her husband went about
purchasing drugs for a quick delivery. But the child an old woman brought
in a pot with its mouth stopped with honeycomb that it might not squall.
Then, when she that carried it nodded, the wife immediately cried out: ‘Go
away, husband, go away, for methinks that I shall be immediately
delivered.’ For the child kicked against the bottom of the pot. And he ran off
delighted, while she drew out the stoppage from the bottle and it cried out.
And then the abominable old woman who brought the child, runs smiling to
the husband, and says: ‘A lion has been born to you, a lion; your very
image, in all other respects whatever, and its nose is like yours, being
crooked like an acorn cup.’”314

That there was a class of people who looked on children in the light of good
or bad bargains we must assume from the certainly serious words of
Demosthenes in his oration against Midias. In his attack on his physical
assailant, Demosthenes says that the real mother of Midias was a wise
woman because she got rid of him as soon as he was born, whereas the
woman who adopted him was a foolish woman because she made a bad
bargain.
“And why?” asks the orator, “because the one sold him as soon as he was
born, while the other, when she might have obtained a better for the same
price, bought Midias.”
Ion,315 when he meets his father for the first time and learns that he had
been exposed, congratulates himself on having escaped slavery, indicating
that in all probability the majority of children saved after they had been
exposed by their parents were saved by the professional slave dealers. The
general view, however, was that children were cheap, Xenophon,316
declaring that “good slaves when they had children generally become still
better disposed, but bad ones increase their power to do mischief.”
Only in two instances as far as we know did the law of the Greeks reach out
to protect the child against the destroying whim of the parent. According to
Ælian317 the Thebans were not allowed to expose their children or leave
them in a wilderness under the pain of death. If the father were extremely
poor, the child, whether male or female, had to be brought to the magistrate
in its swaddling clothes, and there delivered to some person who would
agree to bring up the child and when it was grown up, take it into service
and have the benefit of its labour in return for its education.
As to the other instance of the law protecting the child it has been truly said
that all that Lycurgus did was to insist that all “fit” children should be
raised.
“If,” says Plutarch,318 “they (the Spartans) found it puny and ill-shaped,
they ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetæ, a sort of chasm
under Taygetus, as thinking it neither for the good of the child itself, nor for
the public interest, that it should be brought up, if it did not from the very
outset, appear made to be healthy and vigorous.”
And this was the most “protecting” move of the ancient Greeks.

CHAPTER XIV
FIRST RECOGNITION OF RIGHTS OF CHILDREN—LAWS OF ROMULUS AND OF NUMA
POMPILIUS—THE TWELVE TABLES—ATTITUDE OF PARENTS SHOWN IN
TERENCE—PATRIA POTESTAS SPARINGLY USED.

I T is interesting to think that what might be called the legal movement
which fructified in the United States, in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, had its beginning in the eighth century b. c. in Rome; it is
doubly interesting that legend ascribes to Romulus the first interest in what
can conservatively be called the child protection movement.
Like all other lawmakers—even legendary ones—especially those who
sought to prepare and safeguard their states for and against hostile
neighbours, the first concern of the founder of Rome was a strong nation;
and a strong nation meant necessarily as many adult males in good health
and physical condition as possible. Soldiers were more important than other
human beings; in this the supposed founder followed the spirit of his time
and the standard of his age of development.
According to the legend, Romulus, having made peace with the Sabines and
become the king of both people on the death of Tatius, was bent on making
the new city impregnable, working out a system of government that, in the
mind of the historian, was worthy of “a man of great military
accomplishments, personal courage and extremely capable of instituting the
most perfect sort of government.”319
To the end that there might be as perfect a fighting machine as possible,
Romulus pledged his people to bring up all males except those who were
lame or monstrous from birth. To the same end, and according to the same
authority, he pledged them to bring up the first-born of the females—and in
this he acted purely in the spirit of the time and as the founder of a warlike
race. Personal interest may be conceded, inasmuch as he would have been
the victim of the practice of exposing children had his uncle Amulius had
his way.320
In his introduction to the Institutes of Justinian,321 Sandars declares that
Roman law will be better understood if those interested will apprehend the
distinction between the contribution of Romulus and the tribe of Ramnes,

who dwelt on the Palatine Hill, and the contribution of Numa and the
Titienses who dwelt on the Capitoline and the Quirinal. The two races
combined to make a united society, the Ramnes bringing distinct ideas of
public law and, in the dimmest days of history, presenting the features of a
carefully organized polity. “When the tribe went out to war it did not
conquer lands for the benefit of individuals, but for the whole people.”322
The Titienses, or Quirites, on the other hand, were of Sabine extraction. To
them are traceable the private law, and, what is of interest to us, the peculiar
notions of the family and of property. The great peculiarity of the Sabine
law, or as it was called by the Latin writers, the jus Quirium, was the form
of the manus—the hand. The manus was the conqueror’s sign of conquest,
or rather the insignia of the freebooter; all he laid hand upon became
absolutely his; he could deal with it as he pleased. All that his wife and
children had, also belonged to him, to be done with as he willed—even their
lives. This was the Sabine contribution to what afterward became “Roman
Law,” when the Sabine tribes of the Capitoline Hill and the Ramnes tribe of
the Palatine united to form the city of Rome.
Nowhere in law or history is there so interesting a duality as this origin of
Rome and the Roman law, and no single custom arising as it did, has
affected civilization as strangely and so widely. To think of a tribe living at
Fleet Street super-imposing a law on a tribe living at Westminster, or a clan
having its habitat in Wall Street grafting a law upon a people fortressed and
buttressed in Madison Square Garden—taking either section of London or
New York as an example of the extent of the Rome of that day—it seems
impossible that such a law, thus accepted, should become the law of the
world, and remain so for centuries.
This power of the Roman father over the very lives of his children was
called the patria potestas and nowhere else in a civilized community was
there anything like it.323 He had the power to sell his children, he had the
power to mutilate them, he had the power to kill them; and it is because
there is evident first, in the laws ascribed to Romulus, an intention to abate
that power, not only for military purposes but for what we would now call
humane reasons, that I have referred to the first Roman lawmaker as an
innovator along lines which have been historically neglected.

It matters little whether or not the Romulus of Plutarch and Dionysius
existed; it does matter that the human note was in the laws of his time, and
that citizens of the new city were enjoined not only to bring up all healthy
male children—and at least one female child—but that all children must be
allowed to live until they were three years old, unless they were lame or
monstrous.
Surely here was the beginning of some recognition of the rights of children.
Even the lame and the monstrous in the eyes of this early lawgiver had
some rights, for it was further decreed that parents in doing away with them
must act not entirely on their own judgment.
“These (the lame and monstrous infants) he allowed their parents to expose,
provided they first showed them to five of their neighbours and these also
approved of it, and besides other penalties he punished those who
disobeyed this law with the confiscation of half their fortunes.”324
It may be contended perhaps that we are giving high attributes to one who
is not much more than a mythical person, but no other explanation of the
law of Romulus is offered than that already referred to in Dionysius.
Despite the credit given to Numa Pompilius, by both Plutarch and Gibbon,
Romulus gains by the comparison, although Numa amended one of the laws
of Romulus in the matter of the right of a father to control a son up to the
point of being able to sell him as a slave.325
“If a father gives his son leave to marry a woman who, by law, is to partake
of his sacrifices and fortunes, he shall no longer have power of selling his
son”—such was the amendment of Numa for which Plutarch commends the
Sabine lawmaker; but in amending the law of Romulus permitting a father
to sell his children, the second king of Rome was actuated by the idea of
making it attractive for the young women to marry; doubtless he was
having no easy time in eradicating the differences between the two warlike
tribes first brought together under his predecessor. Lessening the power of
the parents, as he did in the most material degree,326 it was for the purpose
of general polity and the accomplishment of his own harmonious designs,
rather than for what I like to call, even in that early day, humanitarian
reasons. There was no consideration of the child, or the female as such in

Numa’s amendment. His object was to make marriages more desirable that
there might be more male Romans.327
As a matter of fact, declaration of the power of the father over the women
and children of his family was nothing more on the part of Romulus than
the codification of the laws of the past, with the softening provisos to which
I have already referred. The power of the father to imprison, scourge, or sell
his son for a slave, or put him to death, was not lessened even when that son
had risen to the highest honours of the State, as we shall see later.
Expulsion of the kings and the establishment of the Republic is dated b. c.
509, some two hundred and fifty years after the reputed founding of the
city. With this stern period begins a series of thrilling examples of the use
made of the patria potestas—stories that in themselves show how the
power of the father extended over the life of the child, even when the child
had become a man, and that man had been honoured by the State as was
Cassius Viscellinus. The latter, although a tribune of the people and the
author of the first Agrarian Law, was tried in the house of his own father,
who, after having him whipped, “commanded him to be put to death and his
estate consecrated to Ceres.”328
That there was little progress made in the next great step in the history of
Roman law, by which of course one refers to the adoption of the laws of the
Twelve Tables, was because those laws were practically the codification of
the ancient customary law of the people, despite the story that the patricians
dispatched three commissioners to Athens to bring home a copy of the laws
of Solon. Acrid political fights, uncertain and sometimes corrupt
administration of the law, led to the commission empowered to draw up
what afterward became the Twelve Tables and the foundation of the whole
fabric of the Roman law.
As the laws of the Twelve Tables represented the earliest fight against
privilege, it would be too much to expect that they should contain any
amelioration of the statute which gave the father the right to sell or kill his
children. Even the language of the laws, in the fragments which have come
down to us, shows in rugged, concise, and sternly imperative style that the
law gained the respect in which it eventually came to be held, by no soft or
easy methods.329

“If the complainant summon the defendant before the magistrate, he shall
go; if he do not go, the plaintiff may call a bystander to witness, and take
him by force;” this is the first section of the first paragraph of the laws of
the Twelve Tables.
Where there was so much sternness, and where every family was presided
over by a parent who had the right to inflict death as a punishment for
disobedience, the disciplinary attitude of the Roman mind naturally became
such, no matter what it had been in the beginning, that tender or human
emotions had but little place. It is not surprising therefore that the one
extract of the laws of the Twelve Tables, relating to our subject, should deal
curiously, abruptly, and sharply with the power of the father to sell his son,
a power that was diminished only after the son’s spirit must have been
entirely extinguished.
Si pater filium ter venum duit, filius a patre liber esto—if a father sells his
son three times, let the son then go free of the father. In other words, three
times did the father have the right to dispose of his son as a slave; and,
while a slave might purchase his freedom, by paying his master, the son of a
Roman citizen did not become free until the father had abused his right and
misused the potestas three times.330
One sees the Rome of the Republic in the plays of Terence and Plautus, and
the attitude of the parents toward exposure is vividly shown in the
Heautontimorumenos of the former.
Nearly always the exposed child died. Occasionally some escaped through
the tenderness or cupidity of some passer-by who would pick up an exposed
child either out of pity or for the material profit that came with the
possession.
Sometimes mothers who were obliged to obey the orders of their husbands,
arranged to have their children rescued. The comedy of Terence goes to
show what the attitude of the father was under such circumstances. It is
indeed, as De Gour says, “a chapter of the morals of the Greeks and
Romans seen in action.”
Chremes, departing on a long voyage, orders his wife, Sostrata, who is
about to have a child, to expose the child if it should turn out to be a girl. In
obeying this order, she hopefully places a ring with the child.

Years later she meets the child at a bath and is given (by her own daughter)
a ring to guard. Sostrata recognizes the ring and when she sees her husband
the following dialogue ensues:
Sos. (turning ’round). Ha! my husband!
Chrem. Ha! my wife!
Sos. I was looking for you.
Chrem. Tell me what you want.
Sos. In the first place, this I beg of you, not to believe that I have ventured
to do anything contrary to your commands.
Chrem. Would you have me believe you in this, although so incredible?
Well, I will believe you.
Sos. Do you remember my being pregnant, and yourself declaring to me,
most peremptorily, that if I should bring forth a girl, you would not have it
brought up?
Chrem. I know what you have done, you have brought it up.
Sos. Not at all; but there was here an elderly woman of Corinth, of no
indifferent character; to her I gave it to be exposed.
Chrem. O Jupiter! that there should be such extreme folly in a person’s
mind.
Sos. Alas! what have I done?
Chrem. And do you ask the question?
Sos. If I have acted wrong, my dear Chremes, I have done so in ignorance.
Chrem. This, indeed, I know for certain, even if you were to deny it, that in
everything you both speak and act ignorantly and foolishly: how many
blunders you disclose in this single affair! For, in the first place, then, if you
had been disposed to obey my orders, the child ought to have been
dispatched; you ought not in words to have feigned her death, and in reality
to have left hopes of her surviving. But that I pass over; compassion,
maternal affection, I allow it. But how finely you did provide for the future!
What was your meaning? Do reflect. It’s clear, beyond a doubt, that your
daughter was betrayed by you to this old woman, either that through you

she might make a living by her, or that she might be sold in open market as
a slave. I suppose you reasoned thus: “Anything is enough, if only her life
is saved.” What are you to do with those who understand neither law, nor
right and justice? Be it for better or for worse, be it for them or against
them, they see nothing except just what they please.
Sos. My dear Chremes, I have done wrong, I own; I am convinced. Now
this I beg of you; inasmuch as you are more advanced in years than I, be so
much the more ready to forgive; so that your justice may be some
protection for my weakness.
Chrem. I’ll readily forgive you doing this, of course; but Sostrata, my easy
temper prompts you to do amiss. But, whatever this circumstance is, by
reason of which this was begun upon, proceed to tell it.
Sos. As we women are all foolishly and wretchedly superstitious, when I
delivered the child to her to be exposed, I drew a ring from off my finger
and ordered her to expose it, together with the child; that if she should die,
she might not be without some portion of our possessions.331
Chrem. That was right; thereby you proved the saving of yourself and
her.332
Sos. (holding out the ring). This is the ring.
Chrem. Whence did you get it?
Sos. From the young woman whom Bacchis brought with her.
Chrem. What does she say?
Sos. She gave it to me to keep for her, whilst she went to bathe. At first I
paid no attention to it; but after I looked at it, I at once recognized it, and
came running to you.
Chrem. What do you suspect now, or have you discovered, relative to her?
Sos. I don’t know; unless you enquire of herself whence she got it, if that
can possibly be discovered.
Chrem. Is this woman living to whom you delivered the child?
Sos. I don’t know.
Chrem. What account did she bring you at the time?

Sos. That she had done as I had ordered her.
Chrem. Tell me what is the woman’s name, that she may be inquired after.
Sos. Philtere.
Chrem. Sostrata follow me this way indoors.
Sos. How much beyond my hopes has this matter turned out! How
dreadfully afraid I was, Chremes, that you would now be of feelings as
unrelenting as formerly you were on exposing the child.
Chrem. Many a time a man cannot be such as he would be333 if
circumstances do not admit of it. Time has now so brought it about, that I
should be glad of a daughter; formerly I wished for nothing less.
There is no evidence that the Romans as a people at any time approved of
the sale of children, and while the suggestion is made by Gibbon that early
in the days of the kings impoverishing conditions occasionally made it
necessary to dispose of members of the family, from the time of the
adoption of the Twelve Tables as the codified law of Rome there is not a
single indication that the power of the father over grown-up children was
used otherwise than sparingly, and with a view to strengthening the stern
and military character of the Roman idea of family. The main use of the
provision for the sale of children, in time of prosperity at least, was to put
the boy out to business, this being in general more a form that took the
place of what was later apprenticeship and, still later, the labour contract. As
late as Constantine this was permitted, even of new-born children, but only
in cases of extreme need (propter nimiam paupertatem),334 and then when it
seemed the only way to prevent their parents from murdering them.

CHAPTER XV
HUMANITARIAN MEASURES OF AUGUSTUS—LIFE IN THE IMPERIAL CITY—FIRST
ATTEMPTS OF THE STATE TO CHECK INFANTICIDE—TRAJAN AND THE VELEIA
LOAN—STOIC SPIRIT IN PLINY’S CHARITY.

A STONISHING depravity marked the last days of the Republic, to the
point where it was even said that annual divorces were as much the
fashion in Rome as voluntary celibacy.335 Seneca says there were
women who reckoned their years by their husbands. In the severe, early
period of the Republic, celibacy was considered censurable and even
guilty,336 whereas later it was not only condoned but wittily approved, to
judge by the quips of the dramatist, Plautus, whose cynical references to
marriage and the burden of a wife read not unlike our own scoffing and
immoral dramatists of the eighteenth century.337
Civil wars and proscriptions had left great voids in Roman families; more
prolific foreigners, freedmen, and slaves began to dominate the noisy city
now beginning to earn her title of Mistress of the World. The visitor to
Pompeii today, noting the large and heavy paving blocks, the narrow
sidewalks, the deep ruts made in these solid streets by the heavy wagons,
the open shops, the indecent signs, sees Rome in miniature. All this
cosmopolitan disorder marked the greater town that had not twenty
thousand inhabitants but a million; the noise and the congestion increased
out of all proportion to its size because of the character of its dwellers, for
Rome had a large foreign population. As in modern New York or London, it
was in the foreign quarters that were found the discomforts, the loud
misunderstandings, and the noisy, tragic fights for small things.
The stranger arriving in Rome had hardly entered its gates when he was
being jostled and shoved. The narrow streets were filled with pedlars calling
their wares of all kinds, from matches (sulphurata), in exchange for broken
glass where money was scarce, to a dish of boiled peas for an as, or fine
smoking sausages for those who had more money. Idlers filled the streets at
all hours, but especially at the lunch hour (the sixth) when business ceased
and those who patronized the cafés (tabernæ) were hurrying to get to their
accustomed tables.338

THE FINDING OF ROMULUS AND REMUS

Around billboards (programmata) announcing new plays or exhibitions,
crowds gathered while other groups watched acrobats, who beat themselves
for the comic effects produced; dancers, jugglers, snake charmers, and
performers of every kind and nation abounded. Heavily loaded wagons
rumbled noisily along while their drivers cursed and lashed the tired beasts
of burden, or the appearance of a tamed bear threw an entire street into wild
and joyous confusion. Or perhaps a new troupe of gladiators entered town,
to the complete cessation of all business and pastimes.339 Here and there in
the streets, money-changers and others set up tables in convenient places
where they were least apt to be driven away, and hawked loudly the
bargains that they offered. Money from all the world was then flowing
Romeward, and in nothing was this shown more than in expensive funerals,
with their hired and vociferous mourners, blocking the streets and putting
an end for the time being, to other business—and amusements.340 Narrow
as were the streets, they were made more so by the tabernæ, built up against
the houses, this practice becoming so much of a nuisance (as in modern
times) that the Emperor Domitian caused a decree to be issued against
them, forcing the owners to remove the encroachments and confine
themselves to the area of the house.341
A drunken man taking the entire via in his navigation—to the amusement of
the crowd; a member of the city guard hurrying some offender to the court;
or, reclining in his lectica, a noble, carried by six uniformed slaves, his
other numerous attendants clearing the way for him—all these added to the
noise and confusion—while through it all children crowded the curb with
their games.
Such was the Rome that Augustus found, its proud citizens masters of the
world, luxurious, sensual, disdainful of the very idea of duty, idling days
away while they scoffed at marriage. But the foreigners, the freedmen, and
the slaves married, and when the burden of a new child was too much for
the small income made by amusing or serving some Roman citizen, the
little newcomer was thrown into the Tiber or left unmarked on a busy
thoroughfare. One of the first undertakings of Augustus was to try to
remedy these evil conditions by laws and fiscal measures, his principal
endeavour being to put an end to the corruption of morals and the
exhaustion of the legitimate population.

From the day of the battle of Actium (b. c. 31) when the Roman world
practically lay at his feet, Octavius, or Augustus as he was afterward called,
while gratifying his ambition in adding to his power, studiously and
ostentatiously observed the forms of popular government. In this he was
paying heed to the fate of his uncle and also conciliating the people, though
with every ingratiating move he increased his power.
One of the first laws he proposed was the lex Julia (de maritandis
ordinibus) which was rejected by the comitia tributa, b. c. 18, but was
adopted in a. d. 4. To this was added as a supplement the lex Papia
Poppæa, the two being known as the lex Julia et Papia or as novæ leges, or
simply leges, the latter reference indicating that they were referred to as the
laws par excellence. Not only marriage, but everything connected with it
was treated in these two laws, which really constituted a code, the most
extensive after the laws of the Twelve Tables.
These laws made a great impression on Roman society. How completely
customs had swung to extremes since the days of Romulus is shown in this
lex Papia, as Gaius calls it. Instead of securing the father in his right over
the life of children, as the stern head of the house who might decide at will
whether he should let his offspring live, the law now decreed that it was
through the children that he gained a status in the community. Persons who
were not married and had no children were unable to inherit; the unmarried
person not being able to take any part of what had been left to him, and the
married person without children (orbus) being able to take only one half.342
Among the provisions of the lex Julia, or the leges, were those entitling that
candidate for office who had the greatest number of children to preference.
Of the two consuls it was decreed that he should be the senior whose
children were the most numerous; a relief from all personal taxes and
burdens was granted to citizens who had three children if they lived in
Rome, four if they lived in Italy, and five if they lived in the provinces.
With the establishment of the caduca, by which there was instituted a
punishment for sterility and a reward for legitimate procreation, it can be
seen that there would follow some diminution in the number of children
exposed, though according to Tacitus,343 “marriages and the rearing of
children did not become more frequent, so powerful are the attractions of
the childless state.”

By giving the people, or the common treasury, the benefit of the clause
forfeiting the inheritance on account of sterility, the law was recognizing the
populus as the common father, a legal concept that is becoming more and
more the attitude of the twentieth century, and was then first trenchantly
expressed.
Suppressed in part by the constitution of Caracalla as to the privileges of
paternity to the claim upon the caduca, and by Constantine as to the
penalties for celibacy, these laws were not completely and textually
abrogated until Justinian. They were the beginning, however, of the new
movement; out of the degeneration and degradation of the waning days of
the Republic there had come at least this forward step, though the patricians
complained that these provisions gave rise to despised informers and
opportunities for tyrannical misuse of power.
The child now had some other than a future use; it had an immediate value.
Occasionally, in times past, strangers had picked up children exposed by
their parents and had reared them as slaves, or maimed and blinded them
for the profession of begging. Augustus set aside a reward of two thousand
sesterces (about $40.00) for the person who would rear an orphan. This was
the seed of a growing humanity, the first intimation of an inclination to treat
children with kindness, though it contrasts with Augustus’s own personal
conduct when his anger was aroused. Both his daughter and granddaughter
were so profligate that he banished them; when his granddaughter Julia was
delivered of a child after sentence, he ordered that the child be “neither
owned as a relative nor brought up.”344
From the death of Augustus, 14 a. d., to the reign of Nerva, 96 a. d., the
violent sway of the army and the tragic fate of successive emperors cloud
the history of Roman law and progress.
The Emperor Claudius distinguished himself by ordering that Claudia, a
child by his first wife, “who was in truth the daughter of his freedman
Boter, be thrown naked at her mother’s door.”345
There were no successors to the great jurists of the type of Capito and
Labeo, whose opinions in Augustan days were accepted by even the
emperor himself. With the coming of Nerva there was a great change in the
attitude toward children. Despite a short reign of two years and a reputation
for a weak will, it was to his initiative that the State owed the movement to

put an end to the practice of abandoning infants, by having the government
subsidize poor parents.
Apparently there was no other way of stopping this ruinous custom in a
degenerate day. It was useless to appeal to the rich to rear families, and the
poor who were still producing children were becoming poorer. One of
Nerva’s noteworthy acts to alleviate conditions was the founding of
colonies, and it was in accordance with the same general plan that, a few
months before he died, he ordered that assistance should be given parents
who found themselves without the means of bringing up their offspring.
This order was issued in the year 97, and so successful was the experiment
under his successor, who accepted and enlarged the plan, that in the year
100, five thousand children were receiving aid from the State. Much credit
is given to Trajan for following up the ideas of Nerva, but it was to Nerva
that Rome owed Trajan, one of the most humane of her emperors.
Another evidence of the humanity of Nerva was the fact that he prohibited
the making of eunuchs, a practice that had met with the disfavour of the
Emperor Domitian years before, and a practice that led the Pope Clement
XIV., to decree, centuries later, that no more castrats should sing in
churches. And these things he did when the extravagance of his
predecessors had made it necessary for him to sell the imperial furniture
and jewels in order to replenish the treasury. One of his coins shows him
seated in the curule chair, dispensing charity to a boy and girl, the mother
standing near, with the legend “Tutela Italia.”
One need only to read the gentle replies of the Emperor Trajan to the
younger Pliny, to see that, in that reign at least, there was a great change
and that the conception of duty in the modern sense was creeping into a
military world. Pliny himself, in a letter to Cannius, describes how he
settled five hundred thousand sesterces (about $20,000) on the city of Como
for the maintenance of children, “who were born of good families”—an act
as traceable to the growing protective tendency as to Pliny’s patriotism and
love of glory.
According to the tablet of Velia346 to the Emperor Trajan, the landed
proprietors of the place received on mortgage at five per cent.,347 less than
half the usual rate of that time, what would be about $50,000 of our money,

the interest of which was to go to the maintenance of three hundred poor
children.
The means employed to help parents and prevent them from exposing their
children were skilfully contrived. Through the municipality, Trajan lent
money to certain proprietors to improve their land, and the interest paid on
this loan constituted a benevolent fund by which the children were taken
care of, or rather, by which their parents were rewarded for not murdering
them. From the table of Velia we learn also that fifty-one proprietors of that
section received on land twelve times the value of the loan, or 1,116,000
sesterces ($52,820) the annual interest of which, 55,800 sesterces ($2,650),
constituted a fund for the support of three hundred children, two hundred
and sixty-four boys and thirty-six girls. The boys received annually 192
sesterces, and the girls 144 sesterces. Illegitimate children were given less,
the boys 144 sesterces, and the girls 120 sesterces, although in the tablet
there were only two illegitimate children, one boy and one girl. The fact
that the number of girls assisted was only one-tenth the number of boys,
goes to show, that this new institution was not due so much to the fact that
the sentiment of charity had infiltrated through pagan society, as to the fact
that pagan society was endeavouring to repair the ravages of degenerate and
pauperistic days, shown in the diminution of the class of freedmen in
Rome.348
Writing to Pliny at Bithynia, to which place he had been sent by Trajan as
imperial legate, the Emperor mildly answers an inquiry as to what the law
shall be in that province regarding deserted children. Trajan rules that
deserted children, who are found and brought up, shall be allowed their
freedom without being obliged to repay the money expended for their
maintenance.
“The question concerning such children who were exposed by their
parents,” says Trajan, “and afterward preserved by others, and educated in a
state of servitude, though born free, has been frequently discussed; but I do
not find in the constitutions of the princes, my predecessors, any general
regulation upon this head extending to all the provinces. There are, indeed,
some rescripts of Domitian to Avidius Niguinus and Armenius Brocchus,
which ought to be observed; but Bithynia is not comprehended in the
provinces therein mentioned. I am of opinion, therefore, that the claims of
those who assert their right of freedom upon this principle, should be

allowed, without compelling them to purchase their liberty by repaying the
money advanced for their maintenance.”349
A new note this, for in order to encourage the saving of children who had
been exposed, the custom had been rigidly followed that the person who
saved a child was able to regard it as his slave, without regard to what its
condition had been previous to exposure.
As shown in the correspondence of Pliny and Trajan, there is much truth, in
the contention that the Emperor shows up better than the philosopher and
poet.
The noteworthy thing about this remarkable exchange of letters is that a
new spirit is revealed. It is a living, working philosophy that we discover,
practical results of that philosophy bringing a kindlier treatment of slaves, a
greater respect for women, a more thoughtful regard for the education of the
young, and a gentler assistance of the helpless and distressed.
True, Cicero, a century and a half before had preached doctrines that paved
the way, and for generations earlier there had been such a kindlier spirit in
the air. But not until now do we find a man of Pliny’s dominating
prominence, or nearness to power, suggesting that he will pay a third of the
expenses of the cost of founding a university in his own town. His reason,
he says, is to save youths from going to Milan for their education and
thereby getting away from the proper home influences.
Tracing the thin thread of child progress through these livid days we are
brought in touch with the little known but better side of Roman life; for
despite the general debauchery of the upper classes and the unwholesome
pictures of Juvenal, there is evidence that there were Roman families
untouched by the general immorality where women of the type of Marcia or
Helvia, addressed in the letters of Seneca, presided over homes in which
there was an atmosphere of virtue and self-restraint, and where tales of
deeds of the Romans of the earlier days still had their charm and their
influence.

CHAPTER XVI
REFORMS OF HADRIAN—PUNISHMENT OF FATHERS—VALERIUS MAXIMUS—
FAVOURITE STREETS IN ROME FOR LEAVING ABANDONED CHILDREN—
MUTILATING CHILDREN FOR PROFIT.

N EVER, it has been said, had the human race enjoyed a state of
prosperity equal to that under the reign of Hadrian, the successor to
Trajan, and like him a philosopher among emperors. From Nerva to
Marcus Aurelius—the five emperors, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus
Pius, and Marcus Aurelius—there was a reign of philosophy. Indeed they
may also be called the emperors of the children for the reforms they
accomplished and initiated—working as they did, contrary to the entire law
and tradition of their country, and without the inspiration of complete
knowledge of the intellectual and spiritual conditions that were governing
them.

ANTONINUS PIUS, CONSECRATOR
OF THE WORLD’S FIRST
PROTECTIVE FOUNDATION
BENEFIT FOR GIRLS

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT,
EMPEROR-PROTECTOR OF THE

ROMAN CHILD

To appreciate all that Hadrian did, one must remember that he had Plutarch
for a master, Suetonius for his secretary, and Phlegon, his freedman, as
amanuensis to write the history of his reign. As a youth he had studied all
the philosophic systems including that of Epictetus, and showed an
acquisitive spirit. Had he lived in our age of private railway cars probably
he would have spent little time at the Capitol: in a time when travel was
both disagreeable and dangerous he journeyed back and forth over his great
domain, to the dissatisfaction of the Romans, but to his own greater
knowledge of his people and consequent greater humanitarianism.
Out of that philosophy, that association, and that teaching, out of the
character of Hadrian—for, despite the attempts of his biographers,
Startianus and Dion Cassius, to make him a cruel and vain tyrant, his whole
life shows an abhorrence of bloodshed—there was born a new rule.350
He closed the ergastula, or workhouses, where so many men, carried off by
surprise, were detained and tortured; he protected slaves against the cruelty
and murderous punishments of masters, prohibiting their sale to houses of
prostitution or schools for gladiators, and also declaring against the
indiscriminate torture of slaves whose masters had been assassinated. Up to
that time even those who had not been within sight or hearing of a murder
were liable to punishment. A woman who had ill-treated her female slaves
he sentenced to five years’ imprisonment—an unheard-of thing in those
days.
Once before, during the reign of Tiberius, Carthaginian priests had been
crucified by the Emperor for the sacrifice of children to their god Moloch,
but apparently the punishment had not acted as a deterrent, for we find a
similar provision in the laws of Hadrian.
Going further and, as Duruy says, “employing logic in the service of
humanity,” he ruled that any woman who had been free at the time of
pregnancy must naturally give birth to a free child, a ruling not important in
itself but closely in touch with what we will come to see was the argument
of the Christian Fathers in behalf of the lives of little children.
He ameliorated the condition of women, allowing them to make wills, and
for the first time softened the law of the Twelve Tables which, according to
Ulpian, had given a mother no rights in the property of a son dying

intestate. Hadrian, however, following a senatus consultum Tertullianum,
gave the mother, under the jus trium liberorum, the right to inherit when she
had had three sons, and, if a freed woman, when she had had four.
But the great blow Hadrian struck at the theories that had hitherto held sway
was the condemning to banishment a father who had killed his son. From
time immemorial the boast of Rome had been fathers who, in the ardour of
patriotism, and sometimes in the heat of anger or resentment, had sacrificed
their sons, no matter how famous or important their sons were.

THE SACRIFICING OF LIVING INFANTS TO THE GOD MOLOCH

“Lucius Brutus,” says Valerius Maximus, giving suitable incidents of the
father’s power, “who equalled Romulus in honour, for he founded Rome

and thus the Roman liberty, coming to the supreme power, and
understanding that his sons endeavoured to restore Tarquin, caused them to
be apprehended, and to be whipped with rods before the Tribuna; and, after
that, caused them to be tied to a stake, and then ordered the sergeant to cut
off their heads. He put off the relation of a father, that he might act like a
consul; rather chose to live childless, than to be remiss in public duty.
“Cassius, following his example, though his son was a tribune of the
people, and was the first that had promulgated the Agrarian law, and by
many other popular acts had won the hearts of the people, when he had laid
down his command, by advice of his kindred and friends, condemned him
in his own house for affecting the kingdom; and after he was whipped,
commanded him to be put to death; and consecrated his estate to Ceres.
“Titus Manlius Torquatus, famous for his many great dignities, and a person
of rare experience in the civil law and the pontifical ceremonies, did not
think it necessary to consult his friends in an act of the same nature. For
when the Macedonians had by their ambassadors complained to the Senate
of D. Silanus, his son, who was governor of that province, he besought the
Senate that they would determine nothing in that affair till he had heard the
difference betwixt his son and the Macedonians. Then, with the general
consent of the conscript fathers, and of them that came to complain, he sat
and heard the cause in his own house, wherein he spent two whole days
alone, and the third day, after he had diligently examined the testimonies on
both sides, he pronounced this sentence: ‘Whereas it hath been proved that
Silanus, my son, has taken money of our allies, I think him unworthy to live
either in the commonwealth, or in my house, and I command him forthwith
to get out of my sight.’ Silanus, struck with the sharp and cruel sentence of
his father, would not endure to live any longer, but the next night hanged
himself.
“But M. Scaurus, the light and ornament of his country, when the Roman
cavalry was worsted by the Cimbrians and deserting the proconsul,
Catullus, took their flight toward the city, sent one to tell his son, who was
one of those that fled, that he had rather meet with his carcass slain in the
field, than see him guilty of such a shameful flight. And therefore if there
were any shame remaining in his breast, degenerate as he was, he should
shun the sight of his enraged father; for by the remembrance of his youth,
he was admonished what kind of son was to be owned or contemned by

such a father as Scaurus. Which message being delivered him, the young
man was forced to make a more fatal use of his sword against himself, than
against his enemies.
“No less imperiously did A. Fulvius, one of the Senatorian Order, keep back
his son from going into the field, than Scaurus chid his for running away.
For he caused his son, eminent among his equals for his wit, learning, and
beauty, to be put to death because he took part with Catiline, being seduced
by ill-counsel; having brought him back by force, as he was going to
Catiline’s army, and uttering these words before his death, that he ‘did not
beget him to join with Catiline against his country, but to serve his country
against Catiline.’ He might have kept him till the heat of the war had been
over, but that would have been only the act of a cautious, this was the deed
of a severe father.”
The father who was brought before Hadrian under the old conditions would
have been honoured—he had killed a son who befouled his name.
Nevertheless this man was ordered to be deported, “because he had killed as
a thief rather than as one using the power (jure) of father; nam patria
potestas in pietate debet, non atrociate consistere.”351 Whatever the excuse
given, he was punished. That he had not observed the forms in killing his
son by calling a consultation of the members of his family, was the nominal
reason for punishing him, but the unchecked power of the father over the
life of his children, even when they had become adults, was ended.
Modern sensibility will be shocked at the thought that there had been
sufficient social “advance” for distinct places to become established for the
exposure of children. But advance it was when no longer were children left
in unfrequented highways, no longer were they thrown into the Tiber.
There were two places where it was the custom to leave abandoned
children. One was near the Velabrum, a street on the western slope of the
Aventine Hill between the Vicus Tuscus and the Forum Boarium where the
oil dealers and the cheese mongers made a practice of selling their wares;
and the other, in the vegetable market, where there rose a column round
which the children were placed. Because of this practice, according to
Festus, the column was called the Lactaria.352 It was said that courtesans
favoured the Velabrum.

What happened to the children even in this “advanced” age was doubtless
little different from the treatment they received when they were found on
the highways. The elder Seneca has given a vivid account of the practice of
the day in the “Thirty-third Controversy,” book five, headed “Debilitans
Expositos.”353
Difficult as it is to believe that the people who eventually charged
themselves with the rearing of the foundlings made a business of mutilating
them, there is no doubt but that such was the case.
In the “Controversy” of Seneca the question is whether those who mutilated
exposed children have done a wrong toward the State. The debate is opened
by Porcius Latro, who asks if after having suffered the misfortune of being
exposed, it is not a piece of good luck to have someone find them.
Cassius Severus then expresses his opinion.
“Look,” he exclaims, “on the blind wandering about the streets leaning on
their sticks, and on those with crushed feet, and still again look on those
with broken limbs. This one is without arms, that one has had his shoulders
pulled down out of shape in order that his grotesqueries may excite
laughter. Let us view the entire miserable family shivering, trembling,
blind, mutilated, perishing from hunger—in fact, already half dead. Let us
go to the origin of all these ills—a laboratory for the manufacture of human
wrecks—a cavern filled with the limbs torn from living children—each has
a different profession, a different mutilation has given each a different
occupation.”
The conclusion is that inasmuch as the exposed children are slaves, being
the property of those who rear them, they have no cause for complaint
against the State.
“What wrong has been done to the Republic?” asks Gallio in reply to
Severus. “On the contrary, have not these children been done a service
inasmuch as their parents had cast them out?”
“Many individuals,” adds F. Claudius, “rid themselves of misformed
children defective in some part of their body or because the children are
born under evil auspices. Someone else picks them up out of commiseration
and, in order to defray the expenses of bringing the child up, cuts off one of
its limbs. Today, when they are demanding charity, that life that they owe to

the pity of one, they are sustaining at the expense and through the pity of
all.”

CHAPTER XVII
PROGRESS UNDER THE ANTONINES—FAUSTINA’S EFFORTS TO SAVE FEMALE
CHILDREN—CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT GROWS—PLEA OF LACTANTIUS—ITS
EFFECTS—CONSTANTINE.

F ROM the strictly legal side the most interesting event of Hadrian’s
reign is the fact that the opinions of the jurists, when they were
unanimous, were now recognized as written law.354 The constitutions
or proclamations of law of the emperors, although none were ascribed to an
earlier date, had probably been issued for a century previously, but now
what is called the “Perpetual Edict” is finally arranged and authorized, and
law proceeds from an intellectual and philosophic source, instead of from
an imperial head.
In empowering Salvius Julianus, one of the four greatest lawyers Rome
ever produced, to frame an edict, and by a senatus consultum embody this
edict in the statute law of Rome, the entire law of the Empire underwent a
change in spirit. What had hitherto been done by Augustus, by Nerva, by
Trajan, and by Hadrian himself, had furnished only the value of example or
of an immediate law passed for the benefit of some particular condition. A
succeeding emperor was at liberty to imitate or pass similar laws, or ignore
the acts of his predecessors as he might choose. As we shall see, he usually
ignored the noble examples of those who had gone before.
But by placing the making of the law in the hands of the jurists, men who
were thinkers and scholars and under the influence of the spreading Stoic
philosophy, many disciples of Zeno and Chrysippus, and some later to be
under the influence of the Christian philosophy, Hadrian was laying a broad
foundation for the complete passing of the Roman idea of the unimportance
of the child as a child, and making way for the Christian idea which was to
take its place.
By a senatus consultum, passed before the Edict of Julianus, the right of
fathers to expose their children was for the first time taken away; durante
matrimonio they were compelled to rear their children instead of exposing
them, while later regulations made it necessary to maintain even those
children born after divorce.355

This was the first attempt to prohibit the exposing of children.
As we have seen, the right of the father to reject his offspring was restricted
in earliest times to weak and deformed children, and then only after there
had been a conference with five neighbours, but the frequent reference to
the exposure of children under the Republic and under the emperors
indicates that there was little regard for this legal restraint. Even Augustus
himself did not hesitate to expose the child of his granddaughter.
The law of Hadrian has not been placed by scholars and commentators as
the first law against exposing children, partly no doubt because it was too
new to be really effective. In an interesting controversy356 between
Gerardus Noodt and Cornelius Van Binkershoek, as to whether there were
any prohibitory laws prior to those of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian (367
a. d.), Binkershoek maintains with great show of authority, what is
undoubtedly true, that there were. Interesting, too, is the fact that we find in
the Code of Justinian (vii., 16, 1) reference to a rescript of Hadrian in which
the sale of children is referred to as “res illicita et inhonesta,” which is
assumed by Walker to refer to the sales not being properly conducted,357
but which, judging from the temper of the Emperor, referred to the thing
itself.
As the war-loving Trajan was succeeded by the lover of peace, the nomadic
Hadrian was succeeded by the home-loving Antoninus Pius, who did not
leave Rome for almost a quarter of a century, except for one rapid tour
through Asia. He made it possible for children to inherit from their parents
even though they had neglected to imitate a father in becoming a Roman
citizen. He further showed his humanity by compelling cruel masters to sell
slaves they had maltreated.
In the name of his wife, Faustina, for whom—despite the assaults on her
character—he retained ever affection and respect, he consecrated a
protective foundation for the benefit of girls, puellæ alimentariæ
Faustinianæ—the first of its kind in the world, and the initial move to save
female children other than the first-born. A medal of the time, showing the
Empress, bears on the reverse side Antoninus surrounded by children, with
the words Puellæ Faustinianæ in the exergue.358 This, together with his
continuous support of the pueri alimentarii, entitles him to the credit of

saving more children from the “ancient and abominable” custom of being
thrown out on the crossroads to die than any of his predecessors.
At the end of his reign it is evident from the inscriptions that endowments
similar to those originated by Nerva had been made at Atina, Abellinum,
Abella, Vibo, Caieta, Anagnia, Fundi, Cupra Montana, Industria, Brixia,
Aquileia, Compsa, Æclanum, Allifæ, Aufidena, Cures, Auximum, and other
places. What is more interesting than the point of view of E. E. Bryant, in
his Life of Antoninus Pius, that these “endowments undoubtedly pauperized
Italians and lightened unwisely the responsibility of parents for the
maintenance of their children? But they must certainly have been of
assistance to farmers, and have supplied them with the capital necessary for
successful agriculture.”359
The progress made in the matter of child history would be incomplete if one
did not recall that in this reign appeared that bold and able defender of
Christianity, Justin Martyr. The time had gone by for darkness and
seclusion, and now, that which had been contemptuously but so well
described as the religion of “slaves and women, of children and old men,”
strode abroad, proclaiming its right to be heard as a rational and uplifting
doctrine. Pleading for the oppressed and the downtrodden, pleading for
those the Roman world affected to despise, preaching a religion of humility
—there is a fine, robust, masculine note in Justin’s opening words of his
apology, the challenging conviction of a man who knowingly throws down
the gauntlet to the masters of the world.
To the Emperor Titus Ælius Antoninus, Pius, Augustus, Cæsar;
to his Son Verissimus, Philosopher;
to Lucius, Philosopher,
Son of Cæsar by Birth and of Antoninus by Adoption,
a Prince Friendly to Literature;
to the Sacred Senate and to the Entire Roman People,
In the Name of those who, among All Men,
Are unjustly Hated and Persecuted;
I, One of Them,
Justin ... Have Written this Discourse.

It was during the reign of Antoninus that Tertullian was born.
Under Antoninus’s philosophic successor the alimentary institution was
further developed, Marcus Aurelius showing his interest by putting the
supervision under a person of prætorian or consular rank.360 He upheld the

rights of children, going one step further in the direction of freedom by
ending the tyrannical power of the father to oblige his son to put away his
wife, if the latter were disagreeable to the head of the family.
With Marcus Aurelius vanished the humane emperors—they had reigned
long. Culminating in his beneficent sway the Stoic philosophy, from
Aristotle to Marcus Aurelius, kept developing, in the midst of surroundings
the least encouraging. The Stoics, with their ideas of humanity, of mutual
good will and moral equality, arrived at almost the same conclusions
regarding religion and the same sentiment regarding humanity as did the
followers of the Christian religion, although working from an entirely
different source. The one reached its conclusion through the medium of
patrician orators, philosophers, and emperors, the other through the slaves,
the distressed, and those for whom life faced an unbroken wall.
From Aurelius to Septimus Severus there is little but bloodshed in Roman
history. The selection of Papinian, the greatest of Roman jurists, as his
adviser is in a way the greatest claim to fame that Severus has.361 Among
his many laws was one that permitted the sons of a condemned criminal to
retain the rights the father had over freedmen, which was considered a great
indulgence—benignissime rescripsit. He condemned to temporary exile the
woman who, by practising abortion, had deprived her husband of the hope
of children.
Of the bloody reign of Caracalla it is to be noted principally that he changed
the lex Julia in such a way as to deprive paternity of its privileges. Those
who were not married (cœlebs) and those who were married and had no
children (orbus) suffered in regard to their inheritances as they had under
the old law, but Caracalla filled his treasury by sweeping into the fiscus all
the caduca.
While the barbarians are now beginning to press down on the northern
frontiers of the Empire and the Christians beginning to rapidly and swiftly
permeate the vast domain, there is little but a bloody chronicle of making
and unmaking of emperors up to Diocletian. Even when persecuted and
proscribed, says Ortolan, Christianity had a liberalizing and softening effect
on the progress of jurisprudence and legislation. The softening effect was
also the effect of a new understanding. Trajan, one of the greatest of the
humane emperors, had come from Spain, and Diocletian, who temporarily

braced up the Roman legions, put energy into the government, and held the
barbarians in check, was himself from a family of freedmen. The best of the
patrician blood had become thoroughly impregnated with Stoic ideas,
although it was true that the jurists who had obtained their philosophy from
Greece and were given the task of defending existing law and institutions
were still against the new religion. Though the persecutors under Diocletian
were unusually severe, theirs was the final burst of oppression before the
new religion was to triumph in having the head of the great Roman Empire,
Diocletian’s own successor, Constantine, accept the despised faith.
It matters little whether Constantine’s conversion was a political move,
based on a desire to absorb a growing and powerful organization. This was
a century in which things were happening and his was a reign (306 or 313–
337) that marked a long turn in the road in the attitude of the State toward
the child. Despite the progress that had been made, the practice of
murdering and exposing new-born children was becoming more and more
frequent in the provinces, and especially in Italy.362
It was due to poverty, says Gibbon,363 and the principal causes of distress
were the unendurable taxes. The historian declares that “moved by some
recent and extraordinary instances of despair,” Constantine addressed an
edict364 to all the cities of Italy and afterward to those of Africa, directing
that immediate and sufficient aid be given by magistrates to parents who
produced children that they were too poor to bring up. Against the opinion
of Gibbon is set that of Godefroy that it was not some unusual bit of misery,
some “Mary Ellen case,” that moved the Emperor to take this significant
step.
The edict was published on May 12, 315 a. d., a few months before his
victory over Licinius. The Christians had prophesied to Constantine that he
would be victorious and he was more than likely to be influenced by their
point of view, especially that of Lactantius, the noted rhetorician and
teacher, to whom he had entrusted the education of his son, Crispus.
Lactantius had just written his work on The Divine Institutes, designed to
supersede the less complete treatises of Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and
Cyprian. He had dedicated the work to Constantine, and perhaps had
conversed with him about it, discussing one particular chapter in which the
Christian Father had inveighed, with his accustomed grace but with unusual

force, against infanticide and the sale and exposure of infants. A new day,
indeed, had come—the proud Emperor of the mighty Romans sits high on
his throne, listening to, and moved by—a Christian Father!
This is Lactantius’s plea for the new-born, from the sixth book of his Divine
Institutes365:
“Therefore let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly
born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their
souls for life, and not for death. But men, that there may be no crime with
which they may not pollute their hands, deprive souls, as yet innocent and
simple, of the light which they themselves have not given. Any one truly
may not expect that they would abstain from the blood of others who do not
abstain even from their own. But these are without any controversy wicked
and unjust. What are they whom a false piety compels to expose their
children? Can they be considered innocent who expose their own offspring
as a prey to dogs, and as far as it depends upon themselves, kill them in a
more cruel manner than if they had strangled them?
“Who can doubt that he is impious who gives occasion for the pity of
others? For, although that which he has wished should befall the child—
namely, that it should be brought up—he has certainly consigned his own
offspring either to servitude or to the brothel? But who does not understand,
who is ignorant what things may happen, or are accustomed to happen, in
the case of each sex, even through error? For this is shown by the example
of Œdipus alone, confused with twofold guilt. It is therefore as wicked to
expose as it is to kill. But truly parricides complain of the scantiness of their
means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children;
as though, in truth, their means were in the power of those who possess
them, or God did not daily make the rich poor, and the poor rich.
Wherefore, if any one on account of poverty shall be unable to bring up
children, it is better to abstain from marriage than with wicked hands to mar
the work of God.”
As an additional protective measure Constantine withdrew the right of
liberty that the Antonines had secured to foundling children, and in order to
encourage strangers to pick up waifs cast away by parents, the Emperor
made them the slaves of those who raised them. The father was punished
for rejecting his infant by being no longer able to claim a right that had

previously been his. Rather than that there should be murder, the Emperor
went further; he gave poor parents the right to sell their new-born children.
One more step and the story of the Roman child ends. The Emperor
Valentinian, a strange mixture of cruelty and sense—the same who kept two
ferocious she-bears near him and saw that they had human food a-plenty,—
is in the books as the author of the law condemning the exposition of new-
born infants. It was in 374 that this edict was issued in the name of the
Emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, declaring that whosoever should
expose his children should be subject to punishment.366

CHAPTER XVIII

PLEAS OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS.

I T has been said that the only way to understand the Middle Ages is to
comprehend that the Roman Empire did not die down, or fade away; it
remained, or continued to be the centre of civilized government, until
comparatively recent times. In fact, nominally the Holy Roman Empire, the
direct descendant of the Roman Empire, did not pass away as an idea until
1806, when the Emperor Joseph II. announced to the Germanic Diet his
refusal to carry any longer the title of Emperor of the Romans.367
Even when the Roman Empire was at its greatest point of power and
wealth, the actual founders of the Holy Roman Empire were at work in
Rome itself, in the persons of the Christian Fathers; for, after all, it was the
Church that was to rule the world once swayed by Roman legions. The men
who, as representatives of Christ, were later to tame the barbarians, really
laid the foundations for the future greatness of Christian Rome, amid the
very luxury and opulence of the pagan Rome soon to pass away.
The struggles of these Christians among the polished and cruel Romans
was, in a way, a preparation for the struggle to come later with the
unpolished, but equally cruel, barbarians. In their conquest of the Roman
world, the Christian founders saved their religion; in the conquest of the
barbarian hordes, they saved civilization; without Christianity the German
and Celtic races, with their lustful, revengeful, and passionate natures,
either might have overwhelmed Roman civilization entirely, bringing on a
night of barbarism, or have been themselves “corrupted and destroyed by
the vices and sensuality which surrounded them.”368
Amid all the differences of opinion and doctrine that we find among the
early founders of Christianity, there was one thing on which they were
unanimous, and that was the attitude toward children. It was a ceaseless war
they waged in behalf of children—those early and ofttimes eloquent
founders. From Barnabas, contemporary of the Apostles, and by Luke even
called one of them, to Ambrosius and Augustine, they did not cease to

denounce those who, no matter what their reasons, exposed or killed
infants.

“SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME”

No distinction was made by the Fathers between infanticide and
exposure.369 Both were murderous acts, particularly bitterly condemned by
the Christians because their enemies had charged them with murdering
infants at secret rites. The letter attributed to Barnabas by Clement of
Alexandria and Origen, and which in any case goes back to the earliest days
of the religion, severely condemned infanticide. “Thou shalt not slay the
child by procuring abortion, nor again shalt thou destroy it after it is
born.”370 By such protests as these, made with one cannot tell what
frequency, the Christians took their stand on the basic principles.
Justin, whose vigorous manner of addressing the Emperor is so attractive,
succumbed, at the age of seventy-four, to the calumnies of the cynic
Crescentius, and became a martyr; but his example and fervour left an
indelible mark upon his time.
“As for us,” he says, “we have been taught that to expose newly born
children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we
should do any one an injury, and lest we should sin against God; first,
because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the
males) are brought up to prostitution.... Now we see you rear children only
for this shameful use; and for this pollution a multitude of females and
hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities are found
in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from
them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm.”371
And again he says: “We fear to expose children, lest some of them be not
picked up, but die, and we become murderers. But whether we marry, it is
only that we may bring up children; or whether we decline marriage, we
live continently.”372
Athanagoras,373 the Athenian philosopher, who presented to Marcus
Aurelius and to Commodus an apology for the Christians, in 166 a. d.,
asked the logical Romans to use their famous common sense in weighing
false charges made against Christians.
“What man of sound mind,” he said, “will affirm that we, who abhor
murder, are murderers; we who condemn as murder the use of drugs for
abortion, and declare that those who even expose a child are chargeable
with murder.”374

Tertullian, whose apology was written in the year 200, or 205, of our era,
was equally bold.
“Riders of the Roman Empire,” he began, “seated for the administration of
justice on your lofty tribunal”—and then made the charge direct: “You first
of all expose your children, that they may be taken up by any
compassionate passer-by, to whom they are quite unknown; or you give
them away to be adopted by those who will act better to them the part of
parents.”375
Later, in another address, this time to the pagan people, he returns to the
charges.
“Although you are forbidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so
happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity or greater safety, with
the deliberate knowledge of the public and the suffrages of this entire age,
... You make away with them in a more cruel manner, because you expose
them to cold and hunger, and to wild beasts, or else you get rid of them by
the slower death of drowning [sic].”376
“Man is more cruel to his offspring than animals,” said the learned Clement
of Alexandria. “Orpheus tamed the tiger by his songs, but the God of the
Christians, in calling men to their true religion, did more, since he tamed
and softened the most ferocious of all animals—men themselves.”377
No abler pleader for the new order of things was there than Minucius Felix,
a Roman lawyer of education, who, on his conversion to the new faith,
became one of the eloquent founders of Latin Christianity. A disciple of
Cicero, he has been called the “precursor of Lactantius in the graces of
style.”
“How I should like to meet him,” he exclaims, indignantly, “who says or
believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant ... no
one can believe this except one who can dare do it. And I see that you at
one time exposed your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; and
another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death
... and these things assuredly come down from the teachings of your gods.
For Saturn did not expose his children, but devoured them. With reason
were infants sacrificed to him by parents in some part of Africa, caresses
and kisses repressing their crying, that a weeping victim might not be

sacrificed. Moreover, among the Tauri of Pontus, and to the Egyptian
Busiris, it was a sacred rite to immolate their guests, and for the Galli to
slaughter to Mercury human, or rather inhuman, sacrifices. The Roman
sacrifices buried living a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and
a Gallic woman; and to this day, Jupiter Latiaris is worshipped by them
with murder; and, what is worthy of the son of Saturn, he is gorged with the
blood of an evil and criminal man.”378
To drive home the awful character of a crime that was so common we have
the vision of Paul, who sees the man and woman who have exposed
children, suffering in hell the terrible tortures of the damned.
“‘They [the parents] gave us for food to dogs and to be turned out to swine.
Some of us they threw into the river,’ exclaimed these children; “and so
now the guilty are condemned to eternal punishment while the children are
committed to the angels.”379
We have quoted already the eloquent Lactantius. Basil the Great thundered
against infanticide and the spectacle of free children being sold by
avaricious creditors of their fathers. The same Ambrosius, who, although
only a Christian Bishop, castigated the Emperor Theodosius for the
massacre at Thessalonica, brought his force and courage to play against the
law which permitted a debtor to satisfy his claim, at the cost of the liberty
of his son, or the debauchery of his daughter, as the fisc was then authorized
to sell infants to pay unsatisfied taxes.
A new religion in one of the least important provinces of the Roman
Empire, Christianity, in three centuries, pushed its doctrines to the very end
of the vast Roman domain, and even made the conquest of the imperial
throne itself.
Its impassioned preachers and apostles vaunted the humanity of their new
faith; for cast-out infants and the despised slaves the new priests fought
such a battle of perseverance and martyrdom as the world had never seen
before.
In the name of their new God, Jesus, himself admittedly a poor Jew and a
carpenter, they took all the truth there was in the aristocratic philosophy of
the Romans and their emperors, and made it live indeed—they applied it to
the lowest, and the most humble—even to children. “Nothing human is

alien”—this was a verity in the lives of the men who fought the first battles
of Christianity.
Every human being had a soul—that was a vital point in their fight. They
asserted that children had souls, to which religious doctrine probably more
is due in the way of checking the practice of infanticide than any other
single idea. We have seen how Plutarch, the polished philosopher, had gone
as far as the pagan mind could under its philosophy, in directing thought as
to man’s responsibility for actions toward the child, by collecting opinions
of the philosophers as to when an unborn child became a human being.
The Fathers won the battle in that they convinced the Roman world that
children had souls—but the economic battle was one not yet to be won by
preaching. But it was not by orations and preaching alone that they had won
as much as they had.
Constantine, in the year 315, as we have seen, had put forth the
proclamation:
“Let a law be at once promulgated in all the towns of Italy, to turn parents
from using a parricidal hand on their new-born children, and to dispose
their hearts to the best sentiments. Watch with care over this, that, if a father
brings his child, saying that he cannot support it, someone should supply
him without delay with food and clothing; for the cares of the new-born
suffer no delay, and we order that our revenue, as well as our treasure, aid in
this expense.”380
To this he added, in 321, including the provinces:
“We have learned that the inhabitants of provinces, suffering from scarcity
of food, sell and put in pledge their children. We command then that those
found in this situation, without any personal resource, and being able only
with great trouble to support their children, be succoured by our treasury
before they fall under the blows of poverty; for it is repugnant to our morals
that any one under our Empire should be pushed by hunger to commit a
crime.”381
Ten years later, Constantine had to modify the laws in relation to children—
so acute were the sufferings in the Empire—by permitting those who “took
up” children to have the right of property in them.382

“Whoever,” said Constantine in his latest law, “has taken in a new-born boy
or girl, exposed by the order and with the knowledge of its father or master,
outside of the house of the one or the other, has the power to keep him as
son or slave without fear that those who rejected him can reclaim him.”
The conditions of the times, as Dugour points out, are well shown by the
frequency with which these conditions are referred to. Julius Firmicus, an
astrologer of the fourth century, devotes a chapter of his work to revealing
combinations of planets that will tell what will be the fate of the child that is
exposed. Under certain signs the child will perish through lack of food;
under others it will drown; under still another it will be eaten by dogs, and
another combination indicated that it would find a saviour and a second
father.
In 374, the Emperors Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian declared that the
exposure of all infants was punishable, and ordered that parents see to it
that their children were fed. The main question that seemed to agitate both
the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West was that of the rights of
the adoptive parent, as against those who owned the land where the child
had been abandoned.
“Let men look to it that they nourish their children. If they expose them,
they may be punished in conformity with the law. If other persons take the
children up they cannot be reclaimed; as people cannot take again children
they have wilfully permitted to perish.”
In 391, Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius permitted, by other law, the
child sold by its father to become a free man after a short term of servitude,
without reimbursing a master.383
In 409, Honorius and Theodosius issued an edict in favour of Romans sold
to other Romans, limiting the period of slavery to five years. Nevertheless,
in 412, Honorius and Theodosius confirmed the law of Constantine
concerning the sale of infants purchased or taken up with the knowledge of
the bishop of the diocese.
An edict of the emperors maintained the rights of the adoptive parents. The
right of the latter to their property was also confirmed in cases where the
parent or master willingly and knowingly had allowed the child to be
exposed.

Another imperial edict ordered that no new-born could be taken from the
place where it had been found without the presence of witnesses. A form
was drawn up which was to be signed by the bishop.
In 438, these regulations were collected by Theodosius the Second under
the Code that bears his name.
In 451, Valentinian the Third declared that the nutritor, or person who had
taken up the child, should receive an indemnity, independent of the years of
service, and fixed the price to be paid him. The Emperor also declared that
those who had sold children to barbarians, or who had purchased a free
person for the purpose of transporting him across seas, should be compelled
to pay to the fisc, six ounces of gold.384
Following the preachings of the Fathers, and supplementing and
strengthening the laws of the Empire, the Church at various councils, called
always for some other purpose, took action and frequently condemned the
loose morals of the day.
Not orations, nor apologies and pleas alone, says Labourt, would have
brought about the new point of view among people so hard pressed and so
thoroughly imbued with the ideas of another civilization. At the Council of
Ancyra, the modern city of Angora, in the year 314, it was decreed that the
woman guilty of killing her offspring should be punished by being
forbidden to enter a church for the rest of her life, a terrible punishment in
those days.
At the Council of Elvira, the first one held in Spain, by some held to have
met before 250, but by Tillemont placed in the year 300, a decree limited
the period of retribution to ten years, of which two were to be passed in
weeping, at the end of which time the recreant mother could receive the
sacraments.
At a Council in 546, the period of penitence was reduced to seven years. At
the Council of Constantinople, in 588, or 592, the crime was compared to
homicide, and finally Sixtus Quintus and Gregory the Fourteenth stated that
the culprits should suffer capital punishment.
At the Council of Nicaea, in 325,—the famous council at which a
controversy between Bishop Arius and Bishop Athanasius was “settled,”
with the result that Arius was declared a heretic,—it was prescribed, in

Article Seventy of its conclusions, that in each village of the Christian
world there should be established an asylum, under the name of the
Xenodocheion, the object of which was to assist voyageurs, the sick, and the
poor. Without doubt, as Labourt suggests, these places became asylums for
abandoned children.
The question of the property right was one that the Church had to face in
the Council of Vaison, in 442. Frequently after charitable strangers had
taken children off the highways, educated them, and brought them up, their
parents or their owners would demand their return. It was a vital question of
the day: to whom did these children belong?
The Emperor Constantine had declared that those who received them had a
right to them and the Emperor Honorius had added the restriction that the
Church must know of the adoption. Many were the arguments and the legal
battles that ensued, during which time people were little inclined to rescue
the abandoned infants and many perished as victims of the voracity of dogs,
many as the victims of hunger and cold.385
These conditions were presented to the Council, which ordered the
following measures:
“Whoever takes up an abandoned child shall bring him to the Church where
that fact will be certified. The following Sunday the priest will announce
that a new-born child has been found and ten days will be allowed to the
real parents to claim their infant. When these formalities have been
complied with, if any one then claims a child or in any way calumniates
those who have received it, he will be punished according to the Church
laws against homicide.”386
Ten years later the act of the Council of Vaison was sanctioned at the
Council of Arles and again in 505, by the Council of Agde.
It has been said that this was comparatively little when one thinks of this
great union of bishops representing not only the interests of religion but
“the moral needs of the epoch.” On the other hand, any criticism would be
unjust that did not take into consideration the fact that it was great progress
in the face of great poverty and greater barbarity.387
Church and State united in the movement for the protection of the child in
the laws of Justinian, who, raised to the throne in 527, published in 529, and

with considerable changes in 534, a collection of laws that have
immortalized his name, in which the great lawyer Tribonian remade the
three other codes, the Gregorian, Hermogenian, and the Theodosian.
Justinian proclaimed absolute liberty for foundling children, declaring that
they were not the property of either the parents who exposed them or of
those who received them.
One of these laws, promulgated in 553, punished severely those who tried
to hold as slaves, children who had been exposed. This law stated expressly
that all children left at churches or other places were absolutely free. It also
stated that the act of exposing a child exceeded the cruelty of an ordinary
murder, inasmuch as it struck at the most feeble and the most pitiable.
The imperial edict of 553 invited the Archbishop of Thessalonica and the
prefect to give to the foundlings all the help possible and to punish those
who disobeyed the injunction with a fine of five livres of gold. In addition,
the Justinian Code contained a provision by which a father whose poverty
was extreme was allowed to sell his son or his daughter at the moment of
birth and to repurchase the infant later. The Emperor also ordered that some
organized endeavour be made to take care of children for whom no other
provision had been made. Unchanged and little modified, with the
exception of those amendments made by the Emperor Leon, the
philosopher, these laws and these conditions governed the Eastern Empire
from now on until its fall before the arms of the Turks.

CHAPTER XIX
CONDITIONS AMONG THE PEOPLES WHO CONQUERED THE ROMAN EMPIRE—IRISH
SACRIFICED FIRST BORN—THE WERGELD—THE SALIC LAW—CODE OF THE
VISIGOTHS ON EXPOSED CHILDREN—THEODORIC AND CASSIODORUS.

W ITH Church and State united in defence of the child’s right to live,
we turn to the barbaric hordes that were then enfilading the Roman
civilization. For the first time in the history of man the religious law
was the same as the civil law, and for the first time in the history of man
both represented human law.
With Diocletian’s division of the Empire into four almost equal parts under
two Augusti and two Cæsars, there was frank acknowledgment that the
great Roman Empire was at an end. With him, too, ended the fiction of a
popular sovereignty. The Roman Emperor became an Eastern despot. He
was no longer a man of the people easily to be seen and showing his
democracy in frequent unofficial parade.

THE HOLY FAMILY

(AFTER RUBENS)
(REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK)

He was now a secluded person wearing the dress of the Orientals,
surrounded by servile officials; and the Orientalism of the government went
further when Constantine, at the farthest limit of Europe, built a new city,
Constantinople, named after himself. Nominally it was but to divide with
Rome the honours of being the capital; in reality it was to dim the even now
fading lustre of the Seven Hills.
From the frontiers of China to the Baltic there came pressing down on the
fast disintegrating Roman Empire armies of barbarians. Amid all the
disorder, the calamities without number, when civilization, science, and the
arts were all obscured, the Church gained strength, its tenets held sway, its
humanities were accepted as the conquerors in their turn became the
conquered. The Christian religion slowly gripped them all as out of the
convulsions of government there was born the modern Europe.
To the Romans and their adopted allies it was a world of terror—to the
Christians it was a friendly world, for the barbarians were known to the
Church long before they were known to the soldiers who tried to repulse
them.
It has been the fashion to decry the value of the check that the Church put
on the barbarous tribes in the early part of the Christian era.388 Up to the
very door of the Church there was, it is true, slaughter—there it stopped.
Had it not been for the Church upholding what it did of civilization and
humanity, it is difficult to say what would have been the outcome of the
hordes of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Gephids, Longobards, Vandals,
Burgundians, Franks, and Saxons who, at one time or another, fell upon
Rome.
But from the third century these invaders in their very triumph came face to
face with a moral force that checked them as no army could, softened their
manners, and uniting their rude strength with the last remains of the glory
of Rome, gave to the world the civilized nations that now practically control
both hemispheres.
Of the first missionary efforts little is known. Jesus himself had said, “Go
ye therefore and teach all nations.... Teach them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you,”389 and was indeed himself the first
missionary of the new faith. Of his immediate followers only three
undertook missionary work.

After the death of Jesus, the Apostles scattered over the whole world.
“Thomas,” says Eusebius, “received Parthia as his alloted region; Andrew
received Scythia, and John, Asia.... Peter appears to have preached through
Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia ... and Paul spread the
Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum.”390
From another source we are told that Matthew went into Æthiopia, but in
the following century there is little light as to who were the missionaries;
but that they were everywhere successful is shown by the reports of the
Roman governors to the emperors. Undisputed claims of Tertullian and
Justin also show that the work of conversion, despite the proscriptions, was
going on rapidly enough. Ulfilas, “the Apostle of the Goths,” translated the
Bible into their language in 325; Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli in 370, made
his cathedral the centre of missionary work. Chrysostom trained people in
the Gothic language and in missionary work and sent them among the
Goths according to Theodoretius.391
It was harder work in the West but it was more lasting. From Berins, an islet
off the roadstead of Toulon where, in 410 a. d., a Roman patrician,
Honoratus, had founded a monastic home, there were sent bishops to Arles,
Avignon, Lyons, Troyes, Metz, and Nice, and many other places in southern
and western Gaul, all to become the centres of missionary work.392
The proselyting spirit among these Frankish bishops gave rise to a great
movement in the north. The preaching of Patrick was followed by what has
been described as a marvellous burst of enthusiasm; and Celtic enthusiasm
was from now to be counted on. Columba, the founder of Iona, was the
missionary for the Northern Picts and the Albanian Scots; Aidan for the
Northumbrian Saxons; Columbanus for the Burgundians of the Vosges;
Callich or Gallus for north-eastern Switzerland and Germany; Kilian for
Thuringia; Virgilius for Carinthia; Fridolin in Suabia and Alsace; Magnoald
founded a monastery in Fingen; Trudpert penetrated as far as the Black
Forest, where he was killed.
Among these people there had been a variety of conditions before the
coming of, first the Romans, and secondly the Christians. Before the arrival
of St. Patrick and the conversion of the natives there is very little doubt that
part of the pagan worship included human sacrifice. On a plain in what is

now the county of Leitrim which was then called the Magh-Sleacth, or
Field of Slaughter, these primeval rites took place.
“There on the night of Samhin, the same dreadful tribute which the
Carthaginians are known to have paid to Saturn in sacrificing to him their
first-born, was by the Irish offered up to their chief idol, Crom-Cruach.”393
Of the Gauls and the Germans we learn something from Cæsar and Tacitus,
but both are vague enough when it comes to the subject of children. The
two people, according to Strabo, were as much alike as brothers.
“The two races have much in common,” said Martin, “in their social
organization.” In Gaul the power of the father was absolute—viri in uxores
sicut in liberos vitæ necisque habent potestatem, wrote Cæsar, and Tacitus
tells us in Germanicus that the husband had assisted in the execution of his
adulterous wife by her nearest relatives—a condition that would lead one to
believe that there was high regard for the mother of the family, although it
has been said that Tacitus in painting the Germans as virtuous as he did394
was following much along the lines of Fenimore Cooper in painting the
Indians a holy pink—he wished to improve the morals of his own
countrymen and sacrificed truth as a detaining cargo.
The Germans of the fourth century represented about the period of culture
that our American Indians did when the English first arrived in this country.
Unlike the Indians, they had the power to learn, whereas the Indians seemed
to be able to learn only the vices of civilization. Their imagination stirred by
the stories that came back to them of the glory of Rome, they were for
pressing forward. With the growing population that made migration
necessary, and with the inimical forces pushing them from the rear, the
“open road” beckoned them on to Rome.
Before the close of the fourth century the Gospel had been carried to them,
especially to those near the Roman border.
We have seen the laws of old Rome become more humane—what were the
laws of this later Rome?
Among some of the German tribes, notably among the Frisians, we learn
that the father had the right to kill and expose his children when he was
unable to provide them with nourishment; but once the child had taken of
milk or eaten honey it could not be killed. The Emperor Julian, who loved

literature more than he loved religion and has been decorated with the title
Apostate, speaks of a custom of some of the barbarians who lived on the
banks of the Rhine, which consisted of abandoning the new-born children
on the waves of the river, believing that adulterous children would drown
and legitimate children would survive.
The Church was here able “to concord the essentials of two bodies of law
by discarding the elements of formalism and egoism in the Roman law and
the hard and barbaric qualities of the German law; and introduced as
governing principles of social and communal life the grave moral principles
which Christ had proclaimed. The New Testament was the great law, the
legislative ideal for all the Romano-Germanic peoples.”395
In the semi-barbarian laws that came out as the result of the blending of
their own customs with the Roman law, the combined product being
softened by the Christian teaching, there is evident always the Germanic
idea of the wergeld by which a man paid for a crime, from the smallest to
the greatest. And instead of the patria potestas we find the mundium, this
word (hand) being used to describe all classes of protection.
Infanticide is not mentioned as frequently as is abortion. To the belief that
the infant had a soul was traceable this phase of semi-barbarian legislation.
The Franks were not spoken of in history until 240 a. d. (Aurelianus) and
Salian Franks whose laws Montesquieu declared were much quoted and
seldom read were subdued by Julianus.396
According to the Salic law397 to “kill a child that did not as yet have a
name, that is to say one under eight days of age, was to be subject to a fine
or wergeld of 100 sous or 4000 deniers”398 xxiii., 4. Si utero in ventre
matris sui occisus fuerit, aut ante quod nomen abait, malb anneando, sunt
din. iiiM fac. sol. culp. iud.
To kill a boy under ten, according to the early manuscripts, meant a fine of
24,000 deniers, while the later manuscripts raised the age to twelve, as there
was greater wergeld for killing one who was then considered a man. Oghlou
suggests that while it cost but 200 sous to kill an ordinary free man, the
price of an infant under twelve was 600 because “the cowardice of killing a
child that had not arrived at the twelfth year appealed to the barbarians.”
Such an interpretation would be crediting the Salians with a most

humanitarian and nineteenth-century point of view. As a matter of fact, the
fine for the murder of a child is the same as for the killing of a sagbaron
(Dicuntur quosi senatores).
The words puer crintus have been shown by Kern399 to refer not to the fact
that the boy was one of twelve years who had been allowed to wear his hair
long, but one who “by right of birth is allowed to wear his hair long in
contradistinction to slaves and serfs.”400
To cut the hair of a boy or girl by force—and apparently against their will—
meant a fine of forty-five sous. To kill a free girl before the age of twelve
cost 200 sous, after the age of twelve, here given as the age of puberty,
meant 600 sous. To kill a woman who was enceinte meant a wergeld of 700
sous; to strike a woman who was enceinte was 200 sous; if the child died,
600 sous, if the woman also died, 900 sous, and if the woman was in verbo
regis, under the care of the king, 1200 sous.
The Salic law, which was put together by four chosen seigneurs and
corrected by Clovis, Childbert, and Lothair, is also interesting in that it put a
penalty on murders in such a way as to show that even the unborn child was
given a value. A wergeld of 700 sous was declared against one who killed a
woman who was enceinte, and to kill an unborn child entailed a wergeld of
200 sous.
The law of the Allemands, the people who have passed away but who have
left the name by which the French designate the Germans, differed from the
Salic law in an interesting way.
The tendency and underlying idea of the laws of the time is well shown in
the law of the Angles which punished the murder of a noble girl non nubile
with the same wergeld of 600 sous that it punished the murder of a noble
woman who was no longer able to bear children. The murder of a woman
who was capable of bearing children was punishable by a wergeld three
times the size of this. But the fine for a young girl or non fecund woman of
the plain people was only 160 sous.
The Burgundians in their law had no regulation on either infanticide or
abortion. The Ripurian Francs declared strongly against both in a law that
imposed a fine of 100 sous on “any one who killed a new-born child that
had not been named.”

The code of the Visigoths which was arranged after the middle of the fifth
century is the severest of all in its penalties as to abortion and those in any
way responsible for it.
In the matter of exposed children the law went into details. Parents could
not sell children, it states, nor put them in pawn.
“Whoever nourished a child that had been exposed, gained the value of a
slave, which had to be paid by the parents of the exposed child when it was
reclaimed by its parents. If the parents did not present themselves but they
should be found out, they were forced to pay and might be sent into exile. If
they did not have the means to pay, the one who had exposed the child
became a slave in his place to the rescuer.
“If a slave expose a child unknown to the master and the master swear that
he was ignorant of the act, the person who rescues and brings up the child
can recover only one fourth of its value; but if the exposure has been with
the master’s knowledge, the rescuer can recover the full value of the
child.”401
Those to whom a child had been given away to bring up received an agreed
price during the first ten years of the child. After that the law declared that
the service of the child was sufficient compensation for its nurture—an
interesting sidelight on the time when a child became amenable to the “laws
of industry.”
In these laws of the Visigoths it is easy to see the influence of Codex
Theodosianus.

EVENING RECREATION CENTRE FOR BOYS, NEW YORK CITY

MEETING OF AN “EVENING CENTRE,” NEW YORK CITY

Among the Anglo-Saxons there was a law (domas) of Ina, King of Wessex,
which declared that the nourishment for a child exposed and recovered
should be fixed at six sous for the first year, twelve sous for the second
year, and thirty for the third. Another law of the same peoples, ascribed to
Alfred, made it necessary for the person in charge of a foundling at the time
of its death, to establish the fact that the death had occurred in a perfectly
natural way, a sage precaution and one centuries ahead of the time.
Theodoric, or Dietrich as Charles Kingsley called him to the chagrin of
Max Müller and others, as King of the Ostrogoths made an interesting
ruling on the subject of the freedom of children in the year 500. We learn of
this through his secretary, Cassiodorus, for, like other kings, the Ostrogoth
was wise enough to have the cleverest literary man of his day to write his
letters and leave behind his own approved account of his reign.
According to this law, when a father because of poverty was obliged to sell
his child, the child did not therefore lose his liberty.402
Showing how nimble was not only the literary talent but the spirit of
Cassiodorus, it is interesting to read in another part of the writings of the
same author a rescript sent in the name of King Athalaric, the successor of
Theodoric and his grandson, to Severus, the governor of Lucania. As a
picture of the times that we are accustomed to think of as dark, as well as an
example of the dexterous literary skill of Cassiodorus, the letter is worth
printing, for while it takes a most reactionary stand on the matter of the sale
of children it suggests the epistle of Trajan to Pliny.
“King Athalaric to Severus, Vir Spectabilis.
“We hear that the rustics are indulging in disorderly practices, and robbing
the market-people who come down from all quarters to the chief fair of
Lucania on the day of St. Cyprian. This must by all means be suppressed,
and your Respectability should quietly collect a sufficient number of the
owners and tenants of the adjoining farms to overpower these freebooters
and bring them to justice. Any rustic or other person found guilty of
disturbing the fair should be at once punished with the stick, and then
exhibited with some mark of infamy upon him.
“This fair, which according to the old superstition was named Leucothea
(after the nymph) from the extreme purity of the fountain at which it is held,

is the greatest fair in all the surrounding country. Everything that
industrious Campania, or opulent Bruittii, or cattle-breeding Calabria, or
strong Apulia produces, is there to be found exposed for sale, on such
reasonable terms that no buyer goes away dissatisfied. It is a charming sight
to see the broad plains filled with suddenly reared houses formed of leafy
branches intertwined: all the beauty of the most leisurely built city, and yet
not a wall to be seen. There stand ready boys and girls; with the attractions
which belong to their respective sexes and ages, whom not captivity but
freedom sets a price upon. These are with good reason sold by their parents,
since they themselves gain by their servitude. For one cannot doubt that
they are benefited even as slaves (or servants?), by being transferred from
the toil of the fields to the service of the cities.
“What can I say of the bright and many coloured garments? what of the
sleek well-fed cattle offered at such a price as to tempt any purchaser?
“The place itself is situated in a wide and pleasant plain, a suburb of the
ancient city of Cosilinum, and has received the name of Marcilianum from
the founder of these sacred springs.
“And this is in truth a marvellous fountain, full and fresh, and of such
transparent clearness that when you look through it you think you are
looking through air alone. Choice fishes swim about in the pool, perfectly
tame, because if anyone presumes to capture them he soon feels the Divine
vengeance. On the morning which precedes the holy night (of St. Cyprian),
as soon as the priest begins to utter the baptismal prayer, the water begins to
rise above its accustomed height. Generally it covers but five steps of the
well, but the brute element, as if preparing itself for miracles, begins to
swell, and at last covers two steps more, never reached at any other time of
the year. Truly a stupendous miracle, that streams of water should thus
stand still or increase at the sound of the human voice, as if the fountain
itself desired to listen to the sermon.
“Thus hath Lucania a river Jordan of her own. Wherefore, both for
religion’s sake and for the profit of the people, it behoves that good order
should be kept among the frequenters of the fair, since in the judgment of
all, that man must be deemed a villain who would sully the joys of such
happy days.”403

CHAPTER XX
GROWTH OF THE HUMANITARIAN MOVEMENT THROUGHOUT EUROPE—IN THE
DARK AGES—CHURCH TAKES UP THE HUMANITARIAN WORK IN THE SEVENTH
CENTURY—SALE OF CHILDREN COMMON—STORY OF SAINT BATHILDE—
CHILDREN SOLD FOR FATHER’S DEBTS—DATHEUS THE FIRST TO OFFER
CHILDREN A HOME—APPEAL OF POPE INNOCENT III.

I N the Eastern Empire it was always a fight with the Church on the one
hand and barbarian customs on the other for the humanization of the
rapidly developing peoples. We may now look at the Dark Ages in a very
different spirit from that which animated our fathers. We now know that
whatever may have been the faults of the priests or the rulers, the world was
making progress, and new and inherently strong peoples were developing as
fast as they could assimilate a superior civilization.404
The Church, very early in the history of the Christian era, became the
avowed protector of the parentless children and it soon became a custom to
confide infants to the Church when mothers felt that they were unable to
raise their offspring. The gain made by the Church by this step was
immeasurable, for however much those opposed to Christianity might
argue, the onward march was irresistible when religion rested itself on the
mother instinct and, without accusation or attempted retribution, willingly
assumed the ties that maternity was obliged to forego.
By the door of the churches it became the custom to have a marble
receptacle in which mothers placed the children that they were forced to
abandon. The newly born was received by the matricularii or by the priest,
who, following the form prescribed, asked those who assisted at the
adoption ceremonies if there was any known person who would consent to
take charge of the infant. These formalities had to receive the sanction of
the bishop. Not infrequently the priest succeeded in finding among the
parishioners of his church someone who would adopt the infant, but if he
did not, the church always assumed the responsibility and took care of the
orphan. In some places the children that had been abandoned by their
mothers were, by the order of the bishop, shown at the door of the church
for ten days following their abandonment, and if any one recognized and
was able to declare who the parents were, he made such a declaration to the

ecclesiastical authorities—a dangerous custom as many unfortunate though
innocent people discovered.
In the case where some person not officially connected with the church
assumed the responsibility of bringing up the abandoned child, such a
person (nutricarii) received with the charge, a document wherein the fact of
adoption was set forth, the circumstances under which the child was found,
and the right of the adoptive parent to hold the child henceforth as a slave.
In this connection it must be remembered that the Code of Justinian, which
had put an end to this custom in the East, had no force in the West. The
result was that in the European States which succeeded to the Western
Roman Empire it was an almost general custom that abandoned children
grew up in slavery. Indeed, so general was this custom that even the Church
placed the newly born as among its assets, the church of Seville in Spain
enumerating the number of abandoned children taken in as among its
revenues.
At the Council of Rouen, held in the seventh century, the priests of each
diocese were enjoined to inform their congregations that women who were
delivered in secret might leave their infants at the door of the church. The
church thereby attended to the immediate care of the newly born, and while
the fact that the children were brought up in slavery was bad, it was a great
improvement over the conditions in Rome and Greece. At least, if brought
up in slavery, they were brought up with no criminal purpose and as far as
the ecclesiastical authorities were able to regulate their lives, they were not
condemned to lives of immorality.
So bad, however, were the conditions in the seventh century, and so
miserable and poor were the people, that despite the example and the
preachings of the Church, thousands of children were thrown on the
highways or left in deserted places to perish of starvation. Among the
Gauls, before the domination of the Franks, the heads of families that
lacked food, or the means to obtain it, took to the market their children and
sold them as they would the veriest chattels.405 This traffic was not only
common but it took place publicly, and not only in ancient France but in
Germany, in Flanders, in Italy, and in England. Northern Europe was colder,
more swampy, and more desolate then than it is now and across the bleak
and uncultivated country, country such as one finds nowhere in Europe
today but on the professional and bleak battlefields of Bulgaria and Servia,

the half-starved peasants tramped, each with his group of children to place
on sale when the coasts of Italy or France were reached.
It was in this way that Saint Bathilde, afterward the wife of King Clovis II.,
became the slave of the mayor of the palace, Archambault. Bought by the
latter, she was working as a slave in his household when the King saw her
and fell in love with her.406
Moved by such great misery and such odious traffic, holy men went, purse
in hand, to the places where these infants were being sold and purchased the
unfortunates, giving them later their liberty. In this manner, Saint Eunice
was purchased by an Abbé du Berry and Saint Thean by Saint Eloi.
The poverty led to even worse crimes than the selling of their own children
for when it was found by the shiftless and impoverished that they could sell
their own children and the foundlings that they picked up, not infrequently
they robbed more fortunate parents of children that were being well taken
care of.
Similar distress and want had led to similar conditions in the fifth century.
In 449 a. d., the times were so hard and the people were in such a famished
condition in Italy and Gaul that parents sold their children to middlemen
even though they knew the children were to be resold to the Vandals in
Africa. Two years later Valentinian broke up this practice, declaring that the
person who sold a free person for the purpose of having that person sold to
the barbarians would be fined six ounces of gold.407
This traffic was carried to such an excess in the British Islands that it
became the principal object of an apostolic mission of Gregory who became
Pope in 590.
“Our Divine Redeemer,” he wrote, “has delivered us from all servitude and
has given unto us our original liberty. Let us imitate his example by freeing
from slavery those men who are free by the laws of nature.”
The attitude toward children in England under the Anglo-Saxon kings408 is
shown by the fact that a boy’s accountability, his capability of bearing arms
and of the management of his property began, according to the earlier laws,
in his tenth, but according to the laws of Æthelstan, in his twelfth year.409
“The accountability of children was extended even to the infant in the
cradle, whereby, in the case of theft committed by the father, they, like those

of mature age, were consigned to slavery, but this cruel practice was by a
law of Cnut strictly forbidden.410 This premature majority of the Anglo-
Saxon youth accounts for the early accession to the throne of some of the
kings, as Edward the Martyr, who was crowned in his thirteenth year.
Majority at the age of ten is not mentioned in any other Germanic laws,
excepting in favour of the young testator, or the son whose father could not
or would not support him. The beginning of the thirteenth year as that of
majority is strictly and universally Germanic.”411
“The doctrines of the Church,” say Terme and Monfalcon, “were indeed
admirable—they breathed the purest, the finest morality and the most ardent
love of humanity, but they were unable to prevail against the ignorance of
the people and the barbarity of their morals.”
Coming to the first attempts at organized effort to save children by the
Church we find that Article 70 of the Council of Nicaea instructed the
bishop to establish in each city a place to which travellers, the sick and the
poor, might appeal for aid and shelter. The Xenodocheion, as it was called,
is to this day the word for “hotel” in modern Greece, where the traveller in
Europe will conclude there is little evidence of improvement since the
ecclesiastical foundation. These places were also used as the asylums for
children, a fact that led them to be called Brephotrophia.412
In the West a similar movement sprang up, and in the life of Saint Gour,
contemporary of Childebert, it is said that at Trèves there was something
like a systematic endeavour to protect children. A great obscurity hangs
around this foundation, and it is equally difficult to determine positively
what is the exact character of the institution ascribed to Saint Marmbœuf,
who died in Angers in 654.
Of the efforts of Datheus, however, there are no doubts, though interesting
is the fact that no biographical encyclopædia contains even his name. He
was Archbishop of Milan, and the first institution to take care of helpless
children was founded by him in 787.
“An enervating and sensual life,” declared Datheus in founding the asylum,
“leads many astray. They commit adultery and do not dare show the fruits
in public and therefore put them to death. By depriving the children of
baptism they send them to hell. These horrors would not take place if there
existed an asylum where the adulterer could hide her shame, but now they

throw the infants in the sewers or the rivers and many are the murders
committed on the new-born children as the result of this illicit intercourse.
“Therefore, I, Datheus, for the welfare of my soul and the souls of my
associates, do hereby establish in the house that I have bought next to the
church, a hospital for foundling children. My wish is that as soon as a child
is exposed at the door of a church that it will be received in the hospital and
confided to the care of those who will be paid to look after them.... These
infants will be taught a trade and my wish is that when they arrive at the age
of eight years they will be free from the shackles of slavery and free to
come or go wherever they will.”413
In 1380 a similar institution was opened in Venice, and in Florence in 1421.
There is no doubt that similar institutions were most frequent in the
fifteenth century. Pontanus, a writer of that age, speaks of having seen nine
hundred children in the one at Naples, and openly expresses his admiration
for the liberal education that they received and the care bestowed on them
by their teachers.414
The most purely religious institute appears to have been, according to the
able Gaillard, that of the Bourgognes415 in imitation of the charity of St.
Marthe in her house in Bethany. An order, that of the chanoines réguliers du
Saint Esprit, was founded, or at least encouraged by Guy of Montpellier
about the end of the twelfth century for the express purpose of caring for
poor and abandoned children. The same institution is also said to have had
for its founder, Olivier de la Crau in 1010. In any case it was not until 1188,
eight years after the foundation of the order ascribed to Guy of Montpellier,
that the hospital of Marseilles was established.
The historians of Languedoc416 do not justify the assumption that this same
Guy was the son of the Count of Montpellier, and all that we know is that
“Brother Guy” or “Master Guy,” as he was differently called,417 apparently
founded an asylum for sick men and abandoned children.
The success of this order was immediate. In 1197, Bernard de Montlaur and
his wife left a substantial donation to the Hospital of Saint Esprit at
Montpellier, and to Guy, its founder.418 Public approval was followed by
official approval, for the Senate of Marseilles, or the Honourable Council,
as it was called, held its meetings in the hospital founded there by Guy in

1188 and began its deliberations always with a discussion about the
condition of the poor.419
Following the efforts of Guy of Montpellier, at Montpellier and at
Marseilles, the movement, under the auspices of the hospitaliers of Saint
Esprit, spread so rapidly that before the end of the century there were
institutions at Rome,420 one at Bergliac, and one at Troyes, and others in
different places.421 The order founded by Guy was given the approval of the
Holy See, and its founder was called to Rome by Innocent III. and placed in
charge of the house of Santa Maria in Sassia, where the Pope wished the
same spirit that had marked Guy’s own institution at Montpellier. Guy died
in Rome, 1208.

FILLING CHRISTMAS BASKETS FOR POOR CHILDREN—MOTHERS’
HELPING HAND CLUB, NEW YORK CITY

The house of Santa Maria in Sassia to which Guy was called was attached
to the church of that name which had been founded by Gna, king of the
later Saxons, in 715. It had undergone many disastrous changes, but in 1198
Innocent III., at his own expense, had it renovated and repaired for the sick
and poor of Rome. In 1204, moved by the frequency with which the
fishermen of the Tiber found in their nets the bodies of children that had

been thrown into the river, the Pope dedicated part of the hospital to the
care of abandoned children, and it was to this institution that Guy of
Montpellier was called.
The humane movement spread rapidly, generally under at least the nominal
guidance of the Order of Saint Esprit. Many institutions, however, were
founded in the name of Saint Esprit where little attention was paid to
children.
The institution at Embeck422 founded in 1274 made a special work of
taking care of abandoned children in the name of Saint Esprit. We come
now to the name of Enrad Fleinz,423 that bourgeois of Nuremberg, who in
1331 founded in his natal town the first hospital where not only children
might be left, but where women might go to be delivered, without regard to
whether the offspring were legitimate or not. This, too, was in the name of
Saint Esprit, and in the year 1362, a similar asylum for orphans was
founded in Paris.
It was indeed under the auspices of this order that the movement which
began with the imperial Brephotrophia in the sixth century grew, until the
various institutions of one sort or another intended to prevent the outright
murder of children or their abandonment in deserted places were dependent,
not on the humanity of any one man or group of men, but on the new-born
spirit that was then spreading throughout Europe and that continued to
spread even when individualism and materialism as ruling forces had
supplanted religion and asceticism. The history of charity, which, as Lecky
says, is yet to be written, will doubtless reveal, when it comes to be written,
the various unappreciated factors that went to produce the humane
movement.
Some idea of how rapidly these institutions had multiplied may be obtained
from a bull of Nicholas IV., containing a long enumeration of the various
foundations, which includes places in Italy, Sicily, Germany, England,
France, and Spain.424
Besides those enumerated by the Pope, there were however other
institutions springing up where, either as an adjunct to hospital work or as
an independent work itself, children were being cared for. As one of the
original and most scholarly writers on this phase of the subject has pointed
out, it is difficult to make positive statements about these foundations, for

the men interested were intent on their work rather than on leaving a record
of it behind. Perhaps in this connection, some future historian, in viewing
the voluminous charitable records of our day, will assume that “social”
egotism has been well saddled, and made to do more than the work of a
timely charitable impulse.

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL, FOUNDER OF THE FIRST PERMANENT
ASYLUM FOR CHILDREN IN FRANCE

The conditions that led to the crusade of Vincent of Paul antedated that
philanthropist by several hundred years. Where the religious spirit had
failed to arouse interest in the problem of the welfare of parentless children,
the large cities of Europe were themselves forced to take some action.
Milan, in 1168, on the prayer of the Cardinal Galdinus, founded a hospital
(which would indicate that the institution founded by Datheus had either
fallen into disuse or was inadequate) and Venice in 1380 followed the
example of Milan, while the magnificent hospital for foundling children in
Florence (Spidale degl’ Innocenti) was founded, after a long deliberation in
open council, on October 25, 1421.
Included in these governmental or municipal movements is that of St.
Thomas of Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valence, who created an asylum in
his own palace at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and gave orders
that no children presented there should be turned away.
The Hotel-Dieu de Notre Dame de Pitié of Lyons, which by letters patent of
1720 was declared to be the oldest hospital of France, commenced in 1523
the same work, and in that year is recorded as having received nine
children. On February 25, 1530, François the First recognized the right of
the institution to take in these children.
In 1596 the city of Amsterdam began to make provision for the abandoned
children.
The beginning of the movement in Paris, we learn, was the result of the
terrible conditions that followed the war in 1360, 1361, and 1362.425
Poverty and misery were everywhere, and a large number of orphans
practically lived and died in the streets, says Breuil in his Antiquités de
Paris. Various charitable people took in some of these unfortunates, the
Hotel-Dieu being overrun; but, as the conditions were but little ameliorated,
on February 7, 1362, a group of citizens went to the “Reverend father in
God, Messire Jean de Meulant, 88th Bishop of Paris,” and discussed with
him the frightful conditions of the poor boys and girls of Paris. The evils
attending the homeless condition of the latter were especially considered.
We are told that the result of the conference was that the Bishop gave them
permission to institute and erect a hospital of Saint Esprit and bestowed on
each one of the conferees forty days’ indulgence.

The institution that arose as a result of this conference has been criticized as
being narrow in its purpose, inasmuch as the rules declared that only
legitimate children, born of parents in Paris, were to be admitted; but the
restriction, it must be understood, was necessary, in view of the small funds
in hand.
But humanitarian feeling was growing; and people were beginning to be
proud of being thoughtful and kind. It was no longer a mark of superiority
to be lustful of blood. Botterays, in a Latin poem on Paris,426 spoke of the
splendid way in which the orphan children of Paris were brought up,
referring to the Hospital of Saint Esprit and the House of the Enfants-Dieu.
After long years of nominal acquiescence in its teachings, the barbarians of
the North were really beginning to accept the Christianity of Christ.

CHAPTER XXI
CRUELTY TO CHILDREN IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURY—
ATTEMPT AT REGULATION—DEFORMING CHILDREN FOR MOUNTEBANK
PURPOSES—ANECDOTE OF VINCENT DE PAUL—HIS WORK AND HIS SUCCESS.

F ROM Datheus to Vincent de Paul the general history of the child in
Europe moves as from one mountain peak to another with a long valley
of gloom in between. Datheus has received no credit; Vincent de Paul
has been justly recognized as a deserving contemporary of that list of
brilliant men who went to make up the Golden Age of France. Golden Age
that it was, with its highly polished manners, there, under the reign of the
elegant Mazarin and the delicate Anne of Austria, it was no uncommon
sight to see a child lying dead on the pavements, while others died of
misery and hunger under the very eyes of the passers-by. Not a day passed,
say the chroniclers, when the men who had charge of the sewers or the
police did not draw out at least the body of one child.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century Europe, and France especially,
was war-ridden. During the sixteenth century, the religious and charitable
impulses had suffered, first through the national war, then by the factional
wars, and finally by religious wars.
“The religious war,” said the historian of Languedoc,427 “almost entirely
destroyed the Hospital of Montpellier ... and even the order of Saint Esprit
was dying out throughout France.”
It was a curious and disjointed society, that of the France of that day.
Kingdoms there were within the royal domain; the laws of the large city
frequently clashing with those of the province within which it was located;
here and there provinces following their own laws rather than the laws of
the kingdom itself. In some provinces the Church dominated; in others the
nobles; elsewhere, the two classes were beginning to melt into the body of
the nation which occasionally overrode both.428
At Aix, for instance, it was the custom to place the abandoned child in a
religious home where, as in the rest of Provence, the unknown bastard was
charged to the nearest hospital. Practically the same law was observed in
Bretagne.

At Poitiers, a decree on September 15, 1579, “condemning the provision by
which religious orders nourished infants found at their door,” ordered that
the monasteries and ecclesiastic chapters of the place should be called on to
regulate their contributions to the support of the children.
But as a rule the great nobles were obliged to take care of the foundlings
abandoned within their jurisdiction. In the origin of the fiefs, the bastards
had been set down as épaves (waifs), and the interpreters of the law
(jurisconsults) had decided that the lord had no right to refuse to take care
of the épaves. The parliaments too took the view that, inasmuch as the
seigneur profited by all deaths that occurred and succeeded to all titles in
the case of disinheritance within his domain, he should accept the liability
for the care of the unknown children found within their domain.
Of the many decrees which touch on this important point, the oldest is that
of the Parliament of Paris in the year 1547. Many other arrêts followed,
until on September 3, 1667, the following, in the interest of the special
hospitals, declared that:
“All the seigneurs (hauts justiciers) will be held responsible for the expense
and nourishment of all infants whose parents are unknown, and who are
found exposed on their lands and taken to hospitals.”
This regulation, as Ramcle says, failed in its purpose, for it was not possible
to force what was considered charity on the none too generous nobles. The
laws were evaded, and each community tried to send to its neighbours the
unfortunate infants it should have guarded.
The mortality of infants increased, and as in Rome in the days of the
Empire, mothers threw their children into the sewers or left them on the
highways. Those less inhuman left them at the doors of the hospitals,
where, during the winter, in the morning, they were frequently taken in
more dead than alive.
Of course, the laws against these abandonments were promptly enforced—
the unfortunate women were easily punished. A girl who killed her
offspring was hung, and others who were caught leaving children in solitary
places were whipped and disgraced in the cities and villages where they
lived.

By an edict of Henry II., under penalty of punishment, a woman enceinte
was obliged to declare her condition; and to add to this bungling legislative
effort, she was obliged to tell who the guilty man was, the maxim creditur
virgini being accepted everywhere. The attempts at curing the ills failed,
for, while the intentions of the legislators were undoubtedly honest, they
only exposed shameless conditions, made the unfortunate suffer even more,
brought ruin to many honest families, and gain to shameless women only.
The number of children abandoned and murdered in defiance of the
regulations increased instead of decreasing.
At this time there came an individual effort to better things, by a woman
whose name is not even known and whose efforts at a noble work have,
owing to the actions of her servants, been much misinterpreted.
Living in a house in the Cité de Saint-Landry, Paris, with two servants, she
received every morning the infants that the soldiers (or police) had collected
during the night. So many were eventually turned over to her, that she was
unable to feed them, and many died in her own house for lack of food. In
the crowded conditions we are also told a selection429 was made and some
of the children were exposed again, or at least they were turned over to
some charitable or interested person who would accept them. The care of
the children devolving finally on the two servants, many of them are said to
have perished from the drugs they were given to keep them quiet. The
availability of children as beggars led the servants to look on them as a
means of money making, and they were sold for various cruel and evil
purposes, a condition that eventually led to the reform undertaken by
Vincent de Paul.
The fact that they frequently fell into the hands of magicians, mountebanks,
and pedlars, who deformed them in order to make them of assistance in
earning a livelihood, is attested by the biographer of Vincent.
“Returning from one of his missions,” says Maury, “Vincent de Paul, whom
I have dared to call almost the visible angel of God, found under the walls
of Paris one of these infants, in the hands of a beggar, who was engaged in
deforming the limbs of the child. Although almost overcome with horror, he
ran to the savage with that intrepidity with which the virtuous man always
attacks crime.

“‘Barbarian,’ he cried, ‘how you deceive me—from a distance I took you
for a man!’
“He snatched the victim from its persecutor, carried it in his arms across
Paris, gathered a crowd about him and called on them to witness the
brutality of the day and place in which they lived. A few days later he had
founded his first institution for children, and the cause of children had
enrolled one of its noblest champions.”
In order to thoroughly understand the situation, a number of charitable
women under the guidance of Madame Legas, niece of the Lord Chancellor
Marillac,430 went to the house in the Cité de Saint-Landry and studied the
question from the inside of the house. Their horror at the things they saw
led them to declare that the children massacred by Herod were fortunate in
comparison with the condition of the orphans of Paris.431 As it was
impossible to take charge of all the children then in the Cité de Saint-
Landry twelve children were taken, and in 1638, under the care of Madame
Legas and some charitable women, a house was opened for them in the
Faubourg Saint-Victor. As they were able to enlarge the scope of their
institution, more and more children were taken care of; the enthusiasm of
these women ran so high under the glowing example of Vincent, that even
in the dead of night in the cold corners, they would be found going about
the streets of Paris, into the worst and least lighted sections, doing police
duty, gathering the unfortunate victims, and carrying them to the house in
the Faubourg Saint-Victor.432
In the course of time, sufficient interest had developed in this work so that
enough money was forthcoming to enlarge the scope. Vincent gathered
together the pious women who had acted as his assistants and addressed to
them that touchante allocution, sometimes quoted as a model of
eloquence.433 The house in the Faubourg Saint-Victor was soon found to be
too small, and the Château de Bicêtre was obtained from the king.
The place was not found suitable on account of the vivacité de l’air and the
children were transferred to the Faubourg Saint-Lazare, then in 1672 to the
Cité, near Notre Dame, where they remained up to the Revolution. Then
they were assigned the ancient abbaye of Port Royal and the maison de
l’Oratoire, located in the southern part of Paris.

The success of the new undertaking was so great that even Louis XIII.
became interested and donated four thousand francs per year to the charity.
Inasmuch as in the long history of the child’s fight for a place in the
government, this was the first recognition by a government since the
Roman emperors, it is interesting to read Louis’s own statement in the
preamble of the letters patent relating to this gift:
“Having been informed by persons of great piety, that the little attention
which has been given up to the present to the nourishing and care of the
parentless children exposed in the city and outskirts of Paris has been the
cause of death, and even has it been known that they have been sold for evil
purposes, and this having brought many ladies to take care of these
children, who have worked with so much zeal and charitable affection that
their zeal is spreading, and wishing so much to do what is possible under
the present circumstances,434 we have,” etc.
The example of Louis was followed in 1641 by his widow, Anne of Austria,
who made an annual gift of 8000 francs. She had become regent and,
speaking in the name of the young King, said that “imitating the piety and
the charity of the late King, which are truly royal virtues, he adds to this
first gift, another annual gift of 8000 francs. Thanks to what has already
been given and the charity of individuals, the greater number of the infants
rescued have been raised, and there are now more than four hundred
living.”
In June, 1670, Louis XIV. made the children’s hospital one of the
institutions of Paris, and authorized it to discharge the functions and enjoy
the privileges of such an institution.
“As there is no duty more natural,” he declared, “and none that conforms
more to the idea of Christian charity than to care for the unfortunate
children who are exposed—their feebleness and their misfortune making
them doubly worthy of our compassion ... considering also that their
protection and safeguarding is to our advantage inasmuch as some of them
may become soldiers, others workmen, inhabitants of the colonies,” etc.435
The edict declared that while the expenses of the institution had reached
forty thousand francs a year, the royal donation could not exceed twelve
thousand francs, and the King exhorted the women of charity who had done
so much, to continue their notable work.

This royal recognition of the great institution at Paris was not without evil
effect in the provinces. The nobles and the civic authorities of rural
communities, wishing to get rid of the burden of the infants deserted within
their jurisdiction, had the unfortunates taken to Paris.436 They were usually
carried there by men who were driving in on other business, and as many
stops were made between the starting point and the destination, and as the
drivers were more interested in other things than in the infant baggage, for
which they were paid in advance, the mortality greatly increased.
“There was hardly a town in the kingdom,” said Latyone,437 “where
abandoned children were admitted freely and without information being
requested. In the towns that were not too far from Paris, they were carried
thirty and forty leagues, at the risk of having them die on the way; and the
hospital at Paris was overcrowded and in debt.”
This condition of affairs led to a new law, after a report which declared that
of two thousand infants carried to Paris from the provinces, in all sorts of
weather, by public vehicles without care or protection, three quarters had
died within three months. The new law decreed that any wagoner bringing
an infant to Paris to expose it would be fined one thousand livres. Inasmuch
as the rule was made in the interest of the children, it was also decreed that
abandoned children must be brought to the nearest hospital, and if that
hospital declared that it had not enough funds to support the foundlings, the
royal treasury might be drawn on.

CHAPTER XXII
RISE OF FACTORY SYSTEM—THE CHILD A CHARGE ON THE STATE—CHILDREN
ACTUALLY SLAVES UNDER FACTORY SYSTEM—REFORM OF 1833—OASTLER
AGAINST THE CHILD SLAVERY—“JUVENILE LABOUR IN FACTORIES IS A
NATIONAL BLESSING”.

T HE cannibalistic stage has passed and the day of sacrifice has passed—
no longer is the child frankly a convenience nor is its life, as a result of
past economic stress, a lightly considered trifle to be tossed into the
cauldron of religious ceremony. Philosophy, humanity, civilization, and
religion have combined to make the life of the child safe.
With what result?
The general belief that children were not regularly employed until the
middle of the last century, when the factory system arose, had led to the
equally erroneous belief that it was in the factory where the industrial abuse
of children was first practised. In France where there was little industrial
use for children in the large centres of population, where in other words
children did not pay, the problem of modern humanity was to save infants
from exposure and death. In England where there was an industrial use for
them from early times, and where from the earliest times there are records
of their abuse, there was no necessity for measures to protect them from
infanticidal tendencies. But it is in England that we must study the ill-
treatment of children that was brought about by the desire to make them
useful.
The industrial records of the Middle Ages contain but few references438 to
children, for the adults were busy with their own troubles. One of the first
of these notices was an order issued by the famous Richard Whittington, in
1398, and, although it is mixed with other considerations, it shows the
human spark. It reads:
“Ordinances of the Hurers.
“22 Richard II., a. d. 1398. Letter-Book H., fol. cccxviii. (Norman French).
“On the 20th day of August, in the 22d year, etc., the following Articles of
the trade of Hurers were by Richard Whityngtone, Mayor, and the

Aldermen, ordered to be entered.—
“In the first place,—that no one of the said trade shall scour a cappe or
hure, or anything pertaining to scouryng, belonging to the said trade, in any
open place: but they must do this in their own houses; seeing that some
persons in the said trade have of late sent their apprentices and journeymen
as well as children of tender age and others, down to the water of Thames
and other exposed places, and amid horrible tempests, frosts, and snows, to
the very great scandal, as well of the good folks of the said trade, as of the
City aforesaid. And also, because of that divers persons, and pages
belonging to lords, when they take their horses down to the Thames, are
often-times wrangling with their said apprentices and journeymen; and they
are then on the point of killing one another, to the very great peril that
seems likely to ensue therefrom.”439
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the peasants were the villeins of
the owners of the land and held their small farms in return for the work
done, the work of children was contracted for, “the lord very frequently
demanding the labour of the whole family, with the exception of the
housewife.”440
Nearly all the trades and manufactures in the Middle Ages were under the
control of the guilds, so that almost all of the children working, excepting
those on farms or in domestic service, came under their supervision. The
attitude of the guilds toward child labour is shown in the regulations of the
apprenticeships, but this interest was mainly industrial, for in regulating the
work of the children they protected their members from cheap labour and at
the same time, by their supervision over the work of the rising generation,
saw that the guild’s reputation for the proper kind of labour was kept up and
prices therefore held to a desirable level.441
At the same time there was a religious side to the guilds, a strong religious
side, and while everything they did, such as the prohibition of night work
(not out of consideration of the health of the workers but because it might
lead to bad work),442 had a purely industrial aspect, there is no doubt that
this social and religious side developed in the guilds and their members an
outlook on the broader and more humane aspects of their own place in
society. The custom of not permitting a man to employ other than his own

wedded wife and his own daughter was not humanitarian in its intention but
its effect could not be other than beneficial.
“No one of the said trade,” said the ordinances of the Braelers (makers of
braces) in 1355, “shall be so daring as to work at his trade at night ... also,
that no one of the said trade shall be so daring as to set any woman to work
in his trade, other than his wedded wife, or his daughter.”443
In 1562 the Statute of Artificers was passed, regulating the system of
apprenticeship which had hitherto been a matter of regulation only among
the guilds themselves. The national sanction thereby given to the apprentice
system meant much and had a great influence in the years to come. The
chief features of the Act, binding by indenture, registration of the
agreement, and a minimum term of seven years on the indoor system, led to
the master’s entire control of the boy and up to 1814 affected the
relationships of the child employed or otherwise under the control of an
employer.
Coincident with the development of the interest in the child as an industrial
factor arose the interest in the child as a charge on the State, a phase of the
child question that in the ancient civilizations had found its answer mainly
in the toleration of infanticide. The Common Council of London on
September 27, 1556, passed an Act, the following extract from which will
go to show that there was then an attempt to go back of the child problem
and an endeavour to regulate marriage.
“Forasmuche as great pouertie, penurye and lacke of lyvynge hathe of late
yeres by dyverse and soundrye occasyons wayes and meanes arysen growen
and encreased within this Cytye of London not onelye amongste the pore
artyficers and handye craftes men of the same Cytie but also amongest
other Cytezens of suche Companyes as in tymes paste have lyved and
prosperouslye and in greate wealthe and one of the Chiefeste occasyons
thereof (as it is thought and semeth to all men who by longe tyme have
knowne the same Cytie and have had experyence of the state thereof) is by
reason of the ouer hastie mariages and ouer soone setting vpp of
howsholdes of and by the youthe and yonge folkes of the saide Cytye
whiche have commenlye vsyd and yet do to marye themselues as soone as
euer they comme out of their Apprentycehood be they neuer so yonge and
unskyllfull....”444

In the time of Henry VIII. an attempt was made to take care of the question
of the growing number of vagrant children by making all vagrant children
between the years of five and fourteen liable to be bound out to some
master as apprentices, the boys until they were twenty-four and the girls
until they were twenty.445
In 1601 a statute was passed which gave to justices of the peace the power
of apprenticing not only the children of paupers and vagrants but the
children of those parents who were overburdened with children and who
were unable to support them.
“And be it further enacted that it shalbe lawfull for the saide churchwardens
and overseers, or the greater parte of them, by the assent of any two justices
of the peace aforesaid, to binde any suche children as aforesaide to be
apprentices, where they shall see convenient, till suche man child shall
come to the age of fower and twentie yeares, and such woman child to the
age of one and twenty yeares, or the tyme of her mariage; the same to be as
effectuall to all purposes as if suche childe were of full age, and by
indenture of covenant bounde hym or her selfe.”446
In the seventeenth century, the practice of putting children prematurely to
work prevailed to an extent which, when compared with the extent of the
manufacturing system, “seems almost incredible,” says Macaulay.447
A little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour in the town of
Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing trade. Writers at that time, and
among them some who were considered as eminently benevolent,448
mention, “with exultation, the fact that in that single city boys and girls of
tender age created wealth exceeding what was necessary for their own
subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a year.”

INFANT TOILERS IN A SILK MILL, SYRIA

(COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N. Y.)

A HEALTHY PAIR OF INDIAN CHILDREN, WESTERN
CANADA

The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century was sudden and violent.
All the great inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and Boulton were made within
twenty years, steam was applied to the new looms, and the modern factory
system had fairly begun.449 With the demand for labourers and the fact that
the division of labour brought about a call for low-priced workmen, some of
the divisions really necessitating no greater intelligence than that of a child,
the children were in great demand.

It was here that the Statute of Artificers assisted in the crushing industrial
conditions, for the overseers of the poor became the agents of the mill-
owners and arranged for days when the pauper children could be inspected
and selected for the factory work. When the selections had been made, the
children were conveyed by canal boats and wagons to the destination, and
then their slavery began. Sometimes men who made a business of
trafficking in children would transfer them to a factory district where they
were kept in a dark cellar until the mill-owner, in want of hands, came to
look them over and pick out those that he thought would be useful.
Nominally the children were apprentices, but actually they were slaves and
their treatment was most inhuman. The parish authorities, in order to get rid
of the imbeciles, often bargained that the mill-owners take one idiot with
every twenty children. What became of the idiots after they had passed into
the hands of the capitalist is not known, but in most cases they did not last
long and mysteriously disappeared.
No matter what the conditions and no matter how ill the children, they were
worked without any visible vestige of human feeling. Even as late as 1840
in the evidence given before the Select Committee investigating the
conditions of factories after the passage of the Reform Act of 1833, these
were the conditions that the inspectors reported:
Q. “Have you many lace-mills in your district?”
A. “I have about thirty mills.”
Q. “What are the usual hours of work in these mills?”
A. “The usual hours are, about Nottingham, twenty hours a day, being from
four o’clock in the morning till twelve o’clock at night; about Chesterfield,
the report I have had from the superintendent is, that they work twenty-four
hours, all through the night, in several mills there.”
Q. “Are there many children and young persons in those mills?”
A. “The proportion is less in lace-mills than in others, but it is necessary to
have some of them; the process of winding and preparing the bobbins and
carriages requires children; those that I saw so employed were from ten to
fifteen years of age.”
Q. “Are the children detained in the mills during a considerable period of
the day and night?”

A. “I can speak from information derived from two or three mill-owners,
and also more extensively from reports by one of the superintendents in my
district; and I should say that in most of the mills they do detain them at
night; in some of them, the report states that they are detained all night, in
order to be ready when wanted.”
Q. “Are the children that are so detained liable to be detained throughout
the day, and do they sometimes begin their work at twelve o’clock at
night?”
A. “In the mills at Nottingham there are owners that make it a rule that they
will not keep the children after eight, or nine, or ten o’clock, according to
the inclination of the mill-occupier.”
Q. “Where are those children during the time they are detained in the mill?”
A. “When detained at night, and not employed I am told they are lying
about on the floor.”
Q. “Is it customary to close at eight on Saturday evening in the lace-mills?”
A. “I think it is.”
Q. “How then do they compensate for the loss of those four hours work in
those mills?”
A. “By working all night on Friday; those are the mills in which they pay so
much for their power.”
Q. “Must not there be a considerable wear and tear upon the physical
constitution of children who are kept in this state?”
A. “I think it is self-evident.”
Q. “Is there any possibility of their obtaining education under those
circumstances?”
A. “None whatever, except on Sundays.”
Q. “But, after one hundred and twenty hours’ work in the week, is it
possible that they can have much capacity for study on Sunday?”
A. “It is not always that the same children are kept twenty hours, because
some mills have two complete sets of hands for their machinery, and they
work the same set of hands only ten hours.”

Q. “But, even under those circumstances, it must frequently happen that the
same children are employed during the night twice or thrice in the course of
a week?”
A. “The practice generally is that they take the night-work for one week,
and then the next week the morning-work.”
Q. “So that during one whole week they are employed in the night-work?”
A. “Yes.”
Q. “At the end of a week, during which they have been employed in the
night, do you think that they have much capacity left for study on Sunday?”
A. “No; my opinion is most decidedly that either turning out at four o’clock
in the morning, or being kept out of bed at night, must be injurious to
children, both to their physical constitution and their mental powers.”
Q. “The law, as it stands, does not prevent the children from being
employed even twenty hours?”
A. “It does not apply to lace-mills.”
Q. “Therefore the period during which the child is employed depends upon
the varying humanity of the individual proprietor of the mill?”
A. “Yes.”
Q. “You say that it sometimes happens that the children come to the mill at
five in the morning, and do not leave it till ten at night?”
A. “It is reported to me that it does so happen about Chesterfield.”
Q. “If a child is kept in winter till twelve o’clock at night, and has then to
go home and return to the factory in the morning, a distance of two miles,
does not he undergo fearful hardships?”
A. “Certainly.”450
The children who were apprenticed out to the mill-owners were fed on the
coarsest kind of food and in the most disgusting way. They slept by turns, in
relays, in beds that were never aired, for one set of children were turned
into the beds as soon as another set had been driven out to their long and
filthy toil. Some tried to run away and after that they were worked with

chains around their ankles; many died and the little graves were unmarked
in a desolate spot lest the number of the dead attract too much attention.
Sixteen hours a day, six days a week, was no uncommon time for children,
and on Sunday they worked to clean the machine.
“In stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirling of a thousand
wheels, little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced into
unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless
overlooker, and the infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment,
invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness.”451
The agitation against these conditions led, in 1802, to an Act being passed
by the influence of Sir Robert Peel for the preservation of the health and
morals of apprentices and others employed in cotton and other mills.
The immediate cause of this was the fearful spread through the factories in
the Manchester district of epidemic diseases due to overwork, scanty food,
wretched clothing, long hours, bad ventilation, among the working people
and especially among the children.
As far as reforming the conditions in which the children lived, the Act,
however, was a dead letter, and in a debate introduced by Sir Robert Peel on
June 6, 1815, one speaker, Horner, told of the sale of a gang of children
with the effects of a bankrupt.
“A still more atrocious instance,” continued the speaker, “had been brought
before the Court of King’s Bench two years ago, when a number of these
boys apprenticed by a parish in London to one manufacturer had been
transferred (i. e., sold) to another and had been found by some benevolent
persons in a state of absolute famine.”452
No longer could people ignore conditions such as these and a Select
Committee of the House of Commons was empowered to take evidence on
the state of children working in the manufactories of Great Britain. Despite
the horrible nature of the evidence, when the Act resulting from the
investigation was passed, all that it did was to make nine years the limit to
age employment and twelve hours a day the working day for those under
sixteen years. But it was limited in effect to cotton factories only, leaving
the woollen and worsted factories absolutely untouched, and even in the
matter of the cotton factories these provisions were frequently avoided.

Conditions continued to become worse instead of better, children of both
sexes being beaten and overworked to make profit for the rich capitalists
until 1830, when Richard Oastler, who had led in the fight against black
slavery, had his attention called to the conditions under which the children
of England were practically enslaved.453
Oastler was talking one night about his slavery reforms to a friend near
Bradford and the remark was made to him: “I wonder you never turned
your attention to the factory.” “Why should I?” replied the young
abolitionist, “I have nothing to do with factories.” “Perhaps not,” was the
answer, “but you are very enthusiastic against slavery in the West Indies
and I assure you that there are cruelties practised in our mills on little
children which I am sure if you knew you would try to prevent.”
The man who gave this suggestion, John Wood, was himself an owner of a
mill and he admitted to Oastler that in his own mill the little children were
worked from six in the morning until seven at night with a break of only
forty minutes for lunch and that various devices, including beatings with
sticks and straps and clubs, were employed to goad them on to renewed
labour.
The very next day Oastler began a crusade which lasted for many weary
years. He succeeded in interesting J. Hobhouse and M. T. Sadler, both
members of the House of Commons, and the ten hours agitation began in
and out of Parliament. In the course of a speech delivered in March, 1832,
in favour of the ten hours bill, Sadler declared that so great was the demand
in some districts for children’s labour that “an indispensable condition of
marriage among the working classes was the certainty of offspring whose
wages, beginning at six years old, might keep their inhuman fathers and
mothers in idleness.”
“Our ancestors could not have supposed it possible,” exclaimed Sadler,
“posterity will not believe it true—that a generation of Englishmen could
exist, or had existed, that would work lisping infancy a few summers old,
regardless alike of its smiles or tears, and unmoved by its unresisting
weakness, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen hours a day, and through the
weary night also, till in the dewy morn of existence, the bud of youth was
faded and fell ere it was unfolded.”

But, to the nation’s eternal disgrace, that generation of Englishmen did
exist, and Mr. Sadler told the House, detail by detail, of the evils and
outrages of the whole abominable system. Excessive hours, low wages,
immorality, ill-health—all were enumerated, and then he continued:
“Then in order to keep them awake, to stimulate their exertions, means are
made use of to which I shall now advert, as a last instance of the
degradation to which this system has reduced the manufacturing operatives
of this country. Children are beaten with thongs, prepared for the purpose.
Yes, the females of this country, no matter whether children or grown up,
and I hardly know which is the more disgusting outrage, are beaten, beaten
in your free market of labour as you term it, like slaves. The poor wretch is
flogged before its companions, flogged, I say, like a dog, by the tyrant
overlooker. We speak with execration of the cartwhip of the West Indies,
but let us see this night an equal feeling rise against the factory thong in
England.”454
Interesting too was the fact brought out at this time that while these were
the conditions in England, in the colonies black labour was protected to the
extent that nine hours a day was the legal day for adults and young persons
and children were not allowed to work more than six, while night work was
simply prohibited.
The investigation of the Sadler Committee evoked the interesting
information from one witness that children were never employed if they
were under five.
The attitude of the employers toward the agitation can be best judged from
the following extracts:
“Every man acquainted with the political history of the last century must
know, that the labour of children was actually pointed out to the
manufacturers by Mr. William Pitt, as a new resource by which they might
be enabled to bear the additional load of taxation which the necessities of
the State compelled him to impose. The necessity for labour created by this
taxation has not yet abated; because the immense capital taken away by the
enormous expenditure of the great wars arising out of the French
Revolution, an expenditure which was mainly supported out of the
industrial resources of the country, has not been replaced. But even
independent of these considerations, and irrespective of a past which can

never be recalled, we mean to assert, as we have done elsewhere, in broad
terms and the plainest language, that the infant labour, as it is erroneously
called—or the juvenile labour, as it should be called—in factories, is in fact
a national blessing, and absolutely necessary for the support of the manifold
fiscal burthens which have been placed upon the industry of this country. It
is quite sufficient to say that the children of the operatives have mouths, and
must be fed; they have limbs, and must be clothed; they have minds, which
ought to be instructed; and they have passions, which must be controlled.
Now, if the parents are unable to provide these requisites, and their inability
to do so is just as notorious as their existence, it becomes absolutely
necessary that the children should aid in obtaining them for themselves. To
abolish juvenile labour, is plainly nothing else than to abolish juvenile
means of support; and to confine it within very narrow limits, is just to
subtract a dinner or a supper from the unhappy objects of mistaken
benevolence.”455
The result of all this agitation and debate was the famous Act of 1833
introduced by Lord Shaftesbury which prohibited night work to persons
under eighteen in cotton, woollen, and other factories, and provided that
children from nine to thirteen years of age were not to work more than
forty-eight hours a week and those from thirteen to eighteen not to work
more than sixty-eight hours. Children under nine were not to be employed
at all.
Even this much was not obtained until Oastler had succeeded in driving
home to the British mind conditions such as are described in a speech
delivered at Huddersfield, December 26, 1831, of which the following is an
extract:
“I will not picture fiction to you,” said Oastler, in the early days of the
factory movement, “but I will tell you what I have seen. Take a little female
captive, six or seven years old; she shall rise from her bed at four in the
morning of a cold winter day, but before she rises she wakes perhaps half a
dozen times, and says, ‘Father, is it time? Father, is it time?’ And at last,
when she gets up and puts her little bits of rags upon her weary limbs—
weary yet with the last day’s work—she leaves her parents in their bed, for
their labour (if they have any) is not required so early. She trudges alone
through rain and snow, and mire and darkness, to the mill, and there for
thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, or even eighteen hours is she obliged

to work with only thirty minutes’ interval for meals and play. Homeward
again at night she would go, when she was able, but many a time she hid
herself in the wool in the mill, as she had not strength to go. And if she were
one moment behind the appointed time; if the bell had ceased to ring when
she arrived with trembling, shivering, weary limbs at the factory door, there
stood a monster in human form, and as she passed he lashed her. This,” he
continued, holding up an overlooker’s strap, “is no fiction. It was hard at
work in this town last week. The girl I am speaking of died; but she dragged
on that dreadful existence for several years.”456
While Oastler was delivering this speech and these conditions were rife,
Malthus was revising the first edition of his Essay on Population.

CHAPTER XXIII
INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS IN AMERICA—PROTECTION FOR ANIMALS—FOUNDING
OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN—SPREAD
OF THE MOVEMENT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD—ORIGIN IN NEW YORK CITY.

F OLLOWING the Civil War, there began in the United States a
humanitarian movement, an aftermath well becoming a unique and
heartrending struggle. In that period, humane endeavour, like so many
creepers, overran ordinary activities, and philanthropic movements
unprecedented sprang up over the country.
Labour conditions until this period were about the same in the United States
as they were in England. The Puritan idea had been that sin was in idleness,
even for small children; “Colonial records bear evidence that it was a matter
of conscience to keep children at work.”457

CHILDREN OF TWO FAMILIES—AS THE SOCIETY FOR THE
PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN FOUND THEM

THE SAME FAMILIES—AFTER ATTENTION FROM THE SOCIETY

In the latter half of the eighteenth century the development of manufactures,
especially the cloth-making industry, impressed on the American mind, as it
had impressed the English mind, that child labour was a national asset.
When the first cotton factory was started at Beverly, Mass., it was stated
that it would afford “employment to a great number of women and children
many of whom will be otherwise useless, if not burdensome to society.”458
A special report was made by a committee to the Massachusetts Legislature
in 1866 in which it was stated that representatives of the factories went
about systematically canvassing for small children: “Small help is scarce; a
great deal of machinery has been stopped for want of small help, so that the
overseers have been going around to draw the small children from schools
into the mills; the same as a draft in the army.”
Asked if there were “any limit on the part of the employers as to the age
when they take children,” a witness replied: “They’ll take them at any age
they can get them, if they are old enough to stand....”459
The same year that this report was made there was founded in New York a
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in imitation of a similar
society that had been founded in England, in 1823. Out of that movement in
America there grew, in 1874, a movement to look after the rights of
children, the first enunciation in terms of modernity of the fact that society

must not only punish crimes against children, but that it must prevent them.
Following the formation of this society, the first special laws “known in the
world were enacted specifically to protect and punish wrongs to children.”
The result of this development was that in 1880 Frederick A. Agnew visited
America and after an examination of the work being done in New York and
the methods employed, returned to Liverpool, his home, and there in
conjunction with Samuel Smith, M. P., founded the Liverpool Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in 1883—the first society in Europe
to prevent wrongs against children. Shortly after this the Earl of
Shaftesbury organized a similar movement in London. Then, under the
auspices of the late M. Jules Simon, whose work in behalf of children has
not yet been fully appreciated, the movement was taken up in France, M.
Paul Nourisson and M. Ernest Nusse aiding greatly in bringing about a
comprehensive law in relation to the prevention of cruelty to children.
With Lieut.-Gen. D. von Pelet-Narbonne as chairman, the “Verein zum
Schutz der Kinder vor Ausnutzung und Misshandlung” was formed in
Berlin. In 1899 Fräulein Lydia von Wolfring aided in the organization of the
“Wiener Kinder Schutz und Rettungs Verein” with von Krall, Privy
Chancellor of Austria, as chairman. Count Borromeo inaugurated the
movement at Milan in Italy where the padrone system flourished to such an
extent as to indicate that the old Roman theory of the patria potestas was
still alive, at least with the peasants. Through the other countries of Europe
the interest in the new movement ran and the work was taken up; then into
India, China, and South America, until today there is no quarter of the globe
where there is not a society, organized for the purpose of assisting the law
in preventing crimes against the helpless child.
Nothing indicates better the seeming accidental and casual beginnings of
large movements than the formation of this first society in America. Like
Vincent of Paul’s recognition of the horrible crimes that were being
perpetrated in Paris only when he came face to face with an ill-treated
infant, so it was only when it was discovered that, with all the law, there
was no legal way of protecting an American child, that the child-protection
movement, with its many subsequent laws in behalf of children, sprang up.
A mission worker named Mrs. Etta A. Wheeler had found in what was then
the slums of New York that a child, famous after as Mary Ellen, was being

cruelly beaten and ill-treated by a man and woman who had taken it when it
was less than two years of age from a charitable institution. Some idea of
the condition among the slums of a large city of this time may be gained
from the statement of a contemporary newspaper that “at least 10,000
young boys roamed the streets of New York by day and took shelter by
night in any place that seemed to afford a safe retreat, while their older and
more vicious confederates planned how they should succeed in pilfering
and plundering the public. The crumbling and rotten wooden docks of the
metropolis had been for years haunted by these young vagabonds, and as
they were at that time inefficiently policed, they were excellent localities for
the incubators of petty thievery.”
Unless these youngsters actually committed a crime, or unless someone
collected evidence that they were leading an immoral life, they were free to
do what they willed.
Mrs. Wheeler was unable to gather the evidence necessary to remove the
child in which she had become interested, and as the stories of the cruelties
continued, she went to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
at the head of which was Henry Bergh, whose work in this direction was as
notable in this country as was Richard Martin’s in England.
After consultation with the counsel of the Society, Elbridge T. Gerry, it was
decided that “the child being an animal” the Society would act. Mr. Gerry
after a careful examination of the evidence, sued out a writ de homine
replegiando, the child was taken to court, complaints were made against the
so-called guardians, and the woman who had cruelly beaten the child was
afterwards sent to the penitentiary for one year.
And so, for the first time by legal machinery, punishment was meted out for
cruelty to children.

THE “INSPIRATION” OF HENRY BERGH ON WHICH THE SOCIETY FOR THE
PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN WAS ORGANIZED

THE JUVENILE COURT, NEW YORK CITY; JUSTICE WYATT ON THE
BENCH

When it became known that the Animal Society, as it was called, would
interest itself in children who were being ill-treated, the complaints became
numerous. It was decided that a separate society should be incorporated as a
hand attached to the arm of the law.
Of the various movements that grew out of the protection movement, none
was more interesting or attracted more controversy than the endeavours to
protect children of the stage. We have seen in the account of the elder
Seneca and in the treatment by the mountebanks of children in Paris in the
seventeenth century, how easily the unprotected child lent itself to the
calling of the vagabond entertainer. While no such barbarities were
practised in modern times, it was difficult for many people to realize that
the child of five, undergoing training as an acrobat for long hours, was not
being brought up in accordance with the modern theory of the obligations
of the State toward the helpless.
The importation of children that had been sold by their parents in Italy was
also a matter that the Society took up, and in 1879, the white slave question,
even now a live question, arose in an endeavour to stop the padroni from
bringing into America the minors they had gathered abroad.

Probably the most important question that has come before the Society in
recent years has been the proper treatment of those children who, for one
reason or another, are brought into contact with the police. One of the first
things that the New York Society did was to insist that the children who had
to be taken to court should not be mixed with the really criminal. In 1892 an
amendment to the Penal Code made the separation imperative, and out of
this movement has grown the children’s court movement and the proper
study of the so-called juvenile criminal.
Another important branch of the child-protection movement that had its
beginning in New York City, was placing laws on the statute book, and then
enforcing them, against the sale of injurious liquors to children. Laws
tending to protect the morality of children followed these, and in fact almost
from the first year of its birth, every year has seen the Protection Society
enlarging its field of action until today it hardly seems possible that it was
only a few hundred years ago that the very life of a child itself was
considered of no importance.
The general law laid down by Spencer, in virtue of which everything passes
“from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the indefinite to the
definite, from the simple to the complex,” is evident in the history of the
progress of the child as a factor in society.
When in neolithic times there was no moral instinct in man, the child’s only
hope of life was the parental or rather the maternal instinct, of beings not
yet risen to the plain of reasoning animals. In a higher stage of civilization
one finds, where the matriarchal régime exists, children have a value, the
value of chattels and live stock, though the maternal uncle has more rights
over them than their own father.460 The patria potestas of the Romans was
not so strange or unusual as it seemed to Gibbon, for the power of life and
death (jus vitæ ac necis) is found among the Apaches, the Botocodos, the
Bedouins, and the Samoyedes and is a stage in the development and
evolution of the family idea.
In the religious and philosophical stage the child takes on an importance of
its own; it is humanely treated because it is now recognized as a human
being, or it is protected because it is said to have, young and apparently
unimportant as it seems to be, a soul of its own. From there on to the time
when the child, as the father of the man, is a charge upon the State,—or on

all men,—until it is able to take care of and protect itself, the murder of a
child is theoretically as great a crime as the murder of an adult. In fact, the
conditions of the past hold long after each recognized step of progress, the
most primitive habits obtruding in the very midst of the most advanced
knowledge and the most complete enlightenment.
It is for this that the story of the past is valuable. That we may know and
understand and value rightly what is past, past for all time so far as
intelligent and self-governing humanity is able to will—that is one of the
surest steps to knowledge and truth.

APPENDIX A
NAPOLEONIC DECREE OF 1811.

Imperial Decree Concerning Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Poor
Orphans of January 19, 1811.

1ST TITLE.

Article I. The children whose education is entrusted to public charity are:
1st. Foundlings.
2d. Abandoned children.
3d. Poor orphans.

2D TITLE.

2. Foundlings are those born of unknown parents, who have been found exposed in any place, or
those taken to the hospitals intended to receive them.
3. In each hospital intended to receive foundlings there shall be a place where they may be left.
4. There will be at most in each district (arrondissement) an institution where the foundlings may be
received. Registers shall state day by day, their arrival, their sex, their apparent age, and shall
describe the natural marks and the swaddling clothes which may serve for their identification.

3D TITLE.

Of Abandoned Children and Poor Orphans.
5. Abandoned children are those born of known parents and at first raised by them, or by other
persons for them, and are abandoned by them, the whereabouts of the parents being unknown or there
being no means of discovering them.
6. Orphans are those who, not having either father or mother, have no means of subsistence.

4TH TITLE.

Of the Education of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.
7. Newly born foundlings will be placed with a wet nurse as soon as possible; up to that they will be
nourished by the bottle or even by means of wet nurses resident in the establishment. If they are
weaned or susceptible of being weaned, they will either be put to nurse or weaned.
8. These children will receive a layette. They will remain to the age of six years.
9. At six years, all the children will be, or as many as can, put to board with farmers. The price of the
board will increase each year up to the age of twelve, at which period the infant males in a state to
serve will be placed at the disposition of the Minister of the Marine.
10. The infants who cannot be put to board, the crippled and the infirm, will be raised in the
hospitals. They will be occupied in the workshops at those employments that are not below their age.

5TH TITLE.

On the Expenses of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.
11. Hospitals designated to receive foundlings are directed to furnish the layettes and all the inside
expenses pertaining to the nourishment and education of the children.
12. We herewith set aside the sum of 4,000,000 francs annually to contribute to the monthly payment
of wet nurses and the boarding of the foundlings and abandoned children.
If it should turn out after the division of this sum that it is inadequate, the difference will be provided
by the hospitals from their revenues or by drawing on the funds of the community.
13. The monthly payments of the nurses and their board shall not be made except on the certificate of
the mayors of the communities where the children are. The mayors must attest each month that they
have seen the children.
14. The administrative commissioners of the hospitals will visit at least twice in the year each infant,
either a special commission, or by physicians or surgeons, vaccinators or others.

6TH TITLE.

Of the Guardianship and of Foundling Children and Abandoned Children.
15. Foundling and abandoned children are under the guardianship of the hospital, in conformance
with existing regulations. A member of this commission is especially charged with this guardianship.
16. The aforesaid children, brought up at the cost of the State, are entirely at its disposition, and when
the Minister of Marine so decides, the guardianship of the Commission ceases.
17. When the infants have reached the age of twelve years, those whom the State has made no
disposition of will, as soon as it is possible to do so, be apprenticed out, the boys with the workmen,
the girls with housewives, seamstresses, and other workwomen in the factories or manufacturing
establishments.
18. The contracts of apprenticeship shall not stipulate in favour of either the master or the apprentice,
but they will guarantee the master the free services of the apprentice up to an age which shall not
exceed the twenty-fifth year, and the apprentice food, shelter and clothing.
19. At the call of the army, or a conscription, the obligations of the apprentice will cease.
20. Those of the infants who cannot be put out as apprentices, the crippled and the infirm, who
cannot find places outside of the hospitals will remain there as a charge to each hospital.
Workshops will be established in order to provide them with employment.

7TH TITLE.

On the Recognition and Announcement (Reclamation) of Foundlings and Abandoned Children.
21. No charge is made in the rules relative to the recognition and advertising of foundling and
abandoned children, but before exercising any right, the parents must, if they have the means,
reimburse the authorities for all expenses made either by the State or by the hospitals, and in no case,
can an infant of which the State has made disposition, be released until those obligations are met.

8TH TITLE.

General “Dispositions”.
22. The Minister of the Interior will propose to us before January 1, 1812, the rules of administration,
which will be discussed in our Council of State. These rules will determine, for each department, the
number of hospitals where foundlings will be received and all that relates to their administration
concerning principally the disposition of the infants now in charge and the payment for nurses and
boarding.
23. Individuals who are convicted of having exposed children and those who make it a practice of
transporting them to hospitals will be punished in accordance with the law.
24. Our Minister of Marine will present to us a plan dealing with: 1st. An organization relative to
those clauses in which his powers are defined in this decree. 2d. For the regulation of the
employment without delay of those who, on the 1st of January, will become twelve years of age.
25. Our Minister of the Interior is directed to see to the execution of the present decree and will have
it inserted in the bulletin of laws.

APPENDIX B

CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION

OF

THE NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY
TO CHILDREN.
The undersigned persons all being of full age and a majority of whom are citizens of the United
States of America and citizens of and residents within the State of New York, and who desire to
associate themselves together for the purpose of preventing cruelty to children, have this day
associated themselves together pursuant to Chapter One Hundred and Thirty of the Laws of eighteen
hundred and seventy-five and hereby adopt the following:

ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION.

Article First: This society shall be known in law by the name and title of “The New York Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
Article Second: The particular business and objects of this Society are, the prevention of cruelty to
children and the enforcement by all lawful means of the laws relating to or in any wise affecting
children.
Article Third: The number of directors to manage this Society shall be fifteen.
Article Fourth: The names of such directors for the first year of the existence of this society are:
Benjamin H. Field Charles Haight
Henry Bergh Adrian Iselin, Jr.
John Howard Wright B. B. Sherman
Thomas C. Acton Richard R. Haines
Ferdinand De Luca James Stokes
Sinclair Tousey William H. Webb
William M. Vermilye Frederic DePeyster
Harmon Hendricks
In Witness Whereof we have hereunto severally subscribed our names this Twenty-fourth day of
April in the year Eighteen hundred and seventy-five.
John D. Wright Thos. C. Acton
Henry Bergh Chas. Haight
Elbridge T. Gerry Adrian Iselin, Jr.
Benj. H. Field Benj. B. Sherman
Wm. L. Jenkins Richd. R. Haines
John Howard Wright James Stokes
Ferd. De Luca W. H. Webb
Sinclair Tousey Frederic DePeyster
W. M. Vermilye Harmon Hendricks
In the presence of
Ambrose Monell.
State of New York
City and County of New York }ss
On this Twenty-fourth day of April, 1875, personally appeared before me John D. Wright, Henry
Bergh, Elbridge T. Gerry, Benjamin H. Field, William L. Jenkins, John Howard Wright, Ferdinand
De Luca, Sinclair Tousey, William M. Vermilye, Thomas C. Acton, Charles Haight, Adrian Iselin, Jr.,
Benjamin B. Sherman, Richard R. Haines, James Stokes, William H. Webb, Frederic DePeyster, and
Harmon Hendricks, known to me to be the persons above named, and each severally acknowledged
the foregoing to be his signature to the before mentioned Certificate and Articles of Incorporation.
(Seal)

Ambrose Monell,
Notary Public,
County of New York.
(Endorsed)
I hereby approve of the within organization and its purposes and consent to and authorize the filing
of this Certificate and Articles of Incorporation.
Dated, New York, April 26, 1875.
Geo. C. Barrett,
Justice Supreme Court.
(Endorsed)
Certificate of Incorporation
of

The New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children.
Under Chapter 130, Laws of 1875.
Filed, April 27, 1875.
George Franklin,
Dep. Secy. of State.

APPENDIX C
American Consulate,
Aleppo, Syria, December 15, 1913.

Subject: TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
(Consul, Jesse B. Jackson, Aleppo, Syria.)

The Honourable,
The Secretary of State,
Washington.
Sir:
I have the honour to report as follows concerning the treatment of children by the various races and
sects in Aleppo Consular District, viz.:
In many ways the treatment of children by the various races and sects inhabiting Northern Syria
differs vastly from that practised in other countries. Strangely similar in one particular to the custom
of the American Indian, immediately after birth the child is wrapped in cloths until it resembles the
form of a mummy of ancient Egyptian times, in which state it is kept and carried about by nurses and
small children until it is considered old enough to learn to walk, when it is given the freedom of its
limbs. Very young babies must suffer considerably by this treatment, evidenced by their constant
restlessness and crying, no doubt preventing the baby from attaining to its natural strength and
activity until after it has been free for some months. During cold weather a ball of a certain kind of
clay about the capacity of a quart is heated and kept wrapped at the feet of the infant to prevent it
catching cold. Among certain of the lower classes the illness of a girl baby does not cause the anxiety
that it does in the case of a boy, consequently causing a much higher rate of mortality among the
female than the male children.
Among the Arabs, as soon as the children of the tribesmen are six or seven years old they are put to
herding sheep and goats, which vocation they generally follow during their lives, never going to
school or having any kind of instruction. The sons of the sheiks (chiefs) of the tribes are either sent to
school in the cities, or a private tutor, usually a “hodja” (Mohammedan teacher or priest), is engaged,
while the girls are given no education whatever.
The position of a girl varies greatly as between the different races and sects of the country. For
instance, among the Arab and Kurdish tribes, and the Fellaheen (non-Christian farmers), a girl is a
source of revenue to the father who, when she is of marriageable age, trades or sells her to her
prospective husband, obtaining live stock or money to the equivalent of eight to twenty “chees,” or
$176 to $440 (a “chees” equals $22.00), the selling price depending upon the beauty of the girl and
the prominence of her family from the standpoint of wealth and influence. Among these races the
really fat girl commands the highest admiration. The heavier she is the more she is desired and the
better price she brings.
Formerly the Christian and Hebrew families gave their girls little schooling, but instead taught them
to do embroidery and crochet work. Among even relatively poor families there exists a certain pride
that causes housework to be regarded as degrading, and only those will become servants who are
forced to do so by straitened circumstances. In late years there is a tendency to give the girls some

education, which the Christians and Jews receive at the mission establishments of the Americans,
French, English, Italians, Germans, Swiss, etc., while a very limited number of Mohammedan girls
attend local public schools conducted exclusively for them.
Contrary to the custom prevailing among the Arabs, Kurds, and Fellaheen, the Christians and Jews
greatly prefer to have boy babies, and it is considered a great misfortune if most or all of the children
of a family are girls. The boys are sent to the respective community and foreign mission schools, and
some of the more enlightened and progressive families afterwards send their boys to the colleges at
Beyrouth, Syria, to complete their education.
It is the main object of every such family to marry off the girls as soon as possible, for it is
considered a great shame to the girl if she is left unmarried until after twenty or twenty-two years of
age. Marriage is the most important event, and the only one in which she is in any way prominent in
all her life. Her great object in life is to become a wife and be the mother of a boy, the latter event
always raising her in the estimation of her acquaintances and friends, and giving her considerable
importance for the time being, whereas it is the contrary if the baby is a girl. In many families the
young wife is not permitted to speak aloud in the presence of strangers or of the father-in-law until a
boy is born to her.
Parents generally engage their children at very early ages, in which little attention is paid to the
wishes or dislikes of the prospective bride and groom. In fact, unborn children are sometimes
provisionally engaged to each other by their parents, either for sentimental or financial reasons.
Perhaps three-fourths of the girls of the country are married before they reach the age of sixteen, and
many are married between twelve and fourteen.
The consideration paid on the occasion of the marriage of non-Mohammedan, or Christian and
Jewish girls, goes the other way from that paid at the marriage of an Arab girl, it being the desire of
the groom to have as large a dowry as possible for his wife, and which goes to help make up the
family exchequer. It consequently results that if a family that is not well to do has many girls it is
very difficult to marry them well.
A certain brutality of parents towards their children exists among the lower classes, a condition that is
probably due more to inferior intelligence caused by lack of education than to anything else. As but a
very small minority of the population of this part of the country, say twenty per cent., and a much
smaller proportion of the tribes of the interior read and write, this attitude is readily understood.
The prevalence of crippled begging children in the cities leads to the supposition that they are not all
deformed by accident or disease, but that in many instances they have been purposely so rendered in
order to more profitably ply their trade by creating sympathy in the minds of the persons addressed in
their appeals for succour. During the summer months a considerable number of such pitiable
creatures between four and eight years old may be seen in the streets of Aleppo, some with deformed
legs, some with spinal afflictions, and others blind or otherwise maimed, many unable to walk and
hutching from place to place, collecting coppers from those whom their condition touches. As the
hour grows late in the night these unfortunates gradually disappear one by one, and if a person is
interested in their destination they may be seen to be gathered up in some obscure corner by an
apparent relative or guardian, lifted to the shoulder and carried away into the maze of various
Oriental residential quarters, where their scanty collection is spent in support of a family, or for the
poisonous rakee, a strong alcoholic drink much relished by the lower element. It was suspected that a
sort of society existed whereby such children were produced and let out to certain parties to be
exploited for their personal benefit, but no serious investigation has ever been made, and the
nefarious traffic continues.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,

(Signed) Jesse B. Jackson,
American Consul.

American Consulate,
Aleppo, Syria, December 15, 1913.

Subject: REPORT: TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
(Consul, Jesse B. Jackson, Aleppo, Syria.)
The Honourable,
The Secretary of State,
Washington.

Sir:
I have the honour to transmit herewith a report in triplicate,461 of today’s date, subject, “Treatment of
Children,” which is in reply to an inquiry addressed to this Consulate by Mr. George Henry Payne,
New York City, to whom the triplicate copy is hereby requested to be forwarded.
Copies thereof are being sent to the Embassy and Consulate-General, respectively, Constantinople.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Jesse B. Jackson,
American Consul.
Enclosure:
Copy of the triplicate report, as above indicated.

American Consular Service,
Sierra Leone, Africa, April 7, 1914.
George Henry Payne, Esq.,
New York.
Sir:
Yours dated November 1, 1913, has been in my hands some time. The information you request is
rather broad, and would require much investigation to be of any real service to you. Certainly I have
some information, in a general way, but to write it would take much more space than a letter could
contain. But in short, the attitude of the natives of Sierra Leon at present toward children is all of that
of a primitive people emerging into European civilization. Children are regarded very much as a
financial asset, especially by the mothers, and are kept much under the influence and control of the
mothers so long as they live. Those emerging out of tribal customs into European customs have
pretty much the same relations as exist between parents and children in Europe or America. However,

there is little love between the child and father, generally speaking, but much between mother and
child. Boys usually remain in the care of the mothers until they reach the age of puberty, at which
time they leave the association of their mothers and sisters and have that of their older brothers and
fathers, almost exclusively. Upon leaving their mothers’ care and training they are usually, among
those who cling to tribal customs, turned over to the “medicine man,” or doctor, who claims to know
much. They are taken into the “Poro Society” where they are circumcised, and taught the duties of a
man, the use of certain native medicines, etc. The girls remain in the care of the mothers, but at the
age of puberty, or a little while before, are placed into the care of one or more old women who
conduct a female school, the “bundoo” society, where the girls have an operation performed upon
them similar to circumcision, and are taught the duties of a mother and wife, how to care for
themselves, and the use of certain native medicines. The rule is that the girls are not eligible for
marriage until they have been through the “bundoo,” and boys or young men not until they have been
circumcised; but in addition boys must earn their wives by the payment of dowries—presents to the
girls’ mothers and fathers. Children are usually required to perform such work or labor as they are
physically able to perform, strict obedience to their parents and great respect for their seniors, even
for older brothers and sisters, though they be not grown. Children are expected to care for and to
provide for their parents in their old age. Etc.
I regret that I am unable to give you fuller information.
Very sincerely,
W. J. Yerby,
American Consul at Sierra Leone.

Embassy of the United States of America,
Tokyo, March 26, 1914.
George Henry Payne, Esquire,
New York City.
Dear Sir:
In reply to your inquiry regarding the attitude of the people of Japan toward children and the practice
of infanticide, I have the following, which is the result of interviews with representative Japanese and
of my own observations.
As a rule, Japanese are very kind to children and very fond of them; usually they are allowed their
own way a good deal when small and spoiled so that very severe discipline is administered later in an
effort to correct this. Among the lower classes children are very often looked upon as a sort of
insurance or investment against old age; also the system of ancestor worship makes it a highly
desirable thing to have children, particularly sons. For these reasons children are looked upon with
great favour and large families are the rule.
Infanticide is now a crime and is so strictly and severely punished that it cannot be said to be
common, although it does exist to some extent. However, up to about fifty years ago this was not the
case; it was not a crime and was very common. The father of a family had supreme power over the
family, even including the power of life and death, and was free to do with his children almost as he

chose. In regions where the people were poor, infanticide was the regularly recognized means of
preventing large families. The following incident illustrates this very well: In a certain section in
northern Japan was a district where so little could be produced that the people were very poor and no
family had more than one or two children, infanticide being regularly practised. The feudal lord of
the district, being a wise man, decided to remedy this condition, which he proceeded to do by a
system of irrigation which made the district quite fertile; immediately the size of the families rose to
eight and ten and infanticide disappeared.
With regret for my long delay in answering, which has been due to an effort to find some books on
this subject, and trusting that this may be of some slight use to you,
I am,
Yours very truly,
J. K. Caldwell,
Assistant Japanese Secretary.

American Consulate-General,
Santo Domingo, D. R., December 16, 1913.

Mr. George Henry Payne,
New York, N. Y.
Sir:
In reply to yours of November 1, 1913, I have not been able to find any material of interest in regard
to the attitude of the natives before the landing of Columbus. The ruthless attitude of the Spaniards
toward the natives is well known, and apparently neither women nor children were spared. The
treatment of the natives resulted in their rapid decrease in number, and as early as 1510 the traffic in
African slaves was begun and long continued.
Statistics as to the present condition of the child are few. During a typical quarterly period there were
registered 8288 births (4269 males and 4019 females) but this probably represents only a portion of
the actual births; of this number 3290 were legitimate and 4998 illegitimate. This does not, however,
represent the extreme state of immorality that it might indicate, as mating lasting through years and
clung to with fidelity and accompanied by a tender care for the offspring is frequently not preceded
by a marriage ceremony, which is regarded as more or less of a useless expense. The population of
the Republic is not known but is estimated as approximating 600,000.
As among the Spanish races in general, great affection is shown to children. Fathers and mothers,
brothers and sisters lavish caresses upon them continually and in public.
There being few factories in the Dominican Republic, child labour, as we know it, does not exist.
Children early begin to earn their living, but the work is mostly in the open air or open shops and
labour conditions are far from strenuous. The clothing worn by children is scant, and youngsters of
the lower classes up to the age of five or six years usually run nude, decorated only by a necklace or a
pair of earrings.
School facilities, though provided by the State, are inadequate. The reported annual attendance at all
schools in the country is only 20,000.

Health conditions in the island are good. The total deaths registered in one quarter (again short of the
real figures) is 1770, of which 318 deaths were of children less than a year old, and 336 of children
between one and five years. The number of persons reported guilty of crimes or disorders in one
quarter totaled 1910, of which 301 were between fourteen and twenty-one years of age.
I am, Sir,
Very respectfully yours,
Charles H. Allrecht,
Vice and Deputy Consul-General.

American Consular Service,
Port Elizabeth, Union of South Africa, Mar. 7, 1914.
Mr. George Henry Payne,
New York, N. Y., U. S. A.
Sir:
Your letter requesting information for your book on the history of the attitude of states and tribes
toward children received. Such information as has been obtained would indicate that the South
African natives in this section are universally kind to children.
The only “natives” in this district, using the words in a strict sense, are the “Bantus” otherwise the
Kaffirs. These people are specially fond of children and use them well.
If a child is left an orphan, any relative, no matter how distant, is willing to adopt the child. Indeed
the services of the magistrate are frequently required in deciding disputes between claimants.
Love of, and kindness to, children are undoubted characteristics of the Kaffir.
South Africa has a considerable population of mixed races, but, so far as known, the colored people
are kind to their children.
Trusting this may meet requirements.
I am, Sir,
Very respectfully yours,
E. A. Wakefield,
American Consul.

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