Infanticide

“ Infanticide is one of the most horrible of crimes, and its growth among a people is accompanied by as rapid a growth of vice of every other kind. In England where a foundling hospital could not be endured for a moment, the crime of infanticide is increasing every year, and the number of murdered children is already an army of martyrs. ”

“ They speak of infanticide as an evil that
"must be classed with evils almost unavoidable. Now if the buying of adoptive children and of servant girls is to be uniformly abolished, it is to be feared that henceforth the practice of infanticide will extremely increase beyond what it ever was. ”

“ We do not find, in every modern State, such an attitude towards infanticide. There are certain countries in which infanticide is even more severely punished than the murder of an adult. In the country, infanticide is comparatively commoner than in towns, this difference being connected with the fact that in the country districts there are no foundling hospitals, and with the fact that in the country criminal abortion is less frequently practised than in the towns. ”

“ There is no need, however, to consider whether or not infanticide is humane. We are all agreed that it is altogether unnecessary, and that it is seldom that even that incipient form of infanticide called abortion, still so popular among us, need be resorted to. ”

“ A MONSTROUS CRIME.—The abiding interest we feel in the preservation of the morals of our country, constrains us to raise our voice against the daily increasing practice of infanticide, especially before birth. The notoriety that monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch, to gratify an unlawful passion, are a sufficient justification for our alluding to a painful and delicate subject, which should "not even be named," only to correct and admonish the wrong-doers. ”

“ INFANTICIDE, the killing of a newly-born child or of the matured foetus. When practised by civilized peoples the subject of infanticide concerns the criminologist and the jurist; but its importance in anthropology, as it involves a widespread practice among primitive or savage nations, requires more detailed attention. ”

“ The best argument may be deduced from the statements referring to infanticide. It is practised amongst all Australian natives. One of the chief reasons given for it is that the mother cannot possibly suckle and carry two children at one time, especially as children are not weaned before their third to fifth year. If there were a custom of common suckling and nursing a child, and another woman who would replace the mother in her functions could be easily found, the practice of infanticide could scarcely be attributed to the above-mentioned reasons. ”

“ Ordinary homicide may be accomplished by several modes that may sometimes be ascertained by examination of the body, e.g. poison.
As a preliminary in all cases of homicide, it is the duty of the medical jurist in the first place to ascertain the fact of death, and to distinguish between real and apparent death; and then to determine, if possible, the period at which death took place.
Infanticide, or child murder, is by the British law treated with the same severity as the murder of an adult. Indeed infanticide as a crime distinct from murder has no legal recognition. ”

“ In the report already alluded to, beyond reference to the fact that infanticide was rare, we find no mention made as to the number of violent deaths occurring amongst infants. It appears that about a sixteenth of the mortality amongst infants under one year old is due to violence, mostly accidental, the great majority of such deaths being caused by the mother lying upon and smothering her babe. ”

“ Infanticide is very prevalent in our nation. It is a crime that comes within the purview of the law, and is therefore not so boldly practiced as is the other equally great crime, which no doubt, to a great extent, prevents the necessity of infanticide. ”

“ When every pregnancy and every birth are looked upon by human society with honor and respect, when every mother is protected by law and assisted in the education of her children, then only will society have the right to judge severely of infanticide. ”

“ There is little reason to connect the practice of female infanticide among the Todas with any deficiency in the necessaries for existence. It seems clear that at one time the Todas supplemented their food of milk with berries, roots, &c., but it is improbable that they were ever in such straits for food that they would have resorted to infanticide on this account. ”

“ The intimate relationship recognized as existing between the infant and its mother has been among many primitive peoples a frequent cause of infanticide, or has been held at least to excuse and justify that crime. Of the natives of Ashanti, Ellis says:—
"Should the mother die in childbirth, and the child itself be born alive, it is customary to bury it with the mother.... ”

“ They kill the decrepit, maimed, and sick. While, on the one hand, infanticide covers nearer two-thirds than one-half of the births, on the other hand, "one of the first lessons taught the infant is, to strike its mother:" anger and revenge are fostered. ”

“ 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 were10 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 very few cases do we read of infanticide being practiced at the present time on boy babies. Twin murder as mentioned above, the killing in Central Africa of “monstrosities” who have been born with a tooth cut, or who cut their upper teeth first, and the putting away of illegitimate children among some Mohammedans, seem to be almost the only exceptions to this rule. The poor little girl babies, not wanted, not welcomed, considered a disgrace and an expense, must again and again pay the penalty for being girls with their lives. ”

“ In the ancient world, and in a large part of that in which we live, the practice of infanticide was, or is, a regular and legal custom; famine, pestilence, and war were and are normal factors in the struggle for existence, and they have served, in a gross and brutal fashion, to mitigate the intensity of the effects of its chief cause. ”

“ Civilized nations profess to look with abhorrence on the Chinese crime of infanticide, and to believe that the statements of travellers and missionaries are incredible; but a careful examination of the mortuary tables of London, Paris, New York, Dublin, Moscow, and other cities, will show that infanticide is far more common than supposed. It is a crime easily hidden and hard to trace. Take the foundling hospitals as a guide to some approximate estimate of the amount of infanticide in France. ”

“ Subjecting peevish children to such a terrible ordeal as this must have ended often with a tragedy, but even in such cases superstitious mothers could easily persuade themselves that the destroyed infants were undoubtedly the offspring of elfins, and therefore unworthy of their fostering care. The only safeguard to wholesale infanticide was the test applied as to the super-human precociousness, or ordinary intelligence, of the children. ”

“ It is among the more advanced tribes that the motives for female infanticide are found, and I believe the practice exists also to a greater extent than among the lower savages. Thus, where a costly dower has to be given with a girl in marriage, female infanticide is known to be very common. A daughter there is a special cause of impoverishment to her parents, whereas a son is a cause of enrichment. Here we have a motive which seems to act with considerable power, but it does not exist among the lower savages. ”

“ Such a rule of succession might easily lead to a practice of infanticide. Prevalence of infanticide in Polynesia. This singular usage becomes intelligible if the spirit of the father was supposed to quit him at the birth of his first son and to reappear in the infant. Such a belief and such a practice would, it is obvious, supply a powerful motive to infanticide, since a father could not rear his firstborn son without thereby relinquishing the honours and possessions to which he had been accustomed. The sacrifice was a heavy one, and we need not wonder if many men refused to make it. ”

“ It has to be categorically repudiated lest it should be mistakenly regarded as a Eugenic proposal.
Abortion and infanticide are equally condemned by Eugenists, although on different grounds. Infanticide is murder. It destroys the life of an actual human being. ”

“ Arabs, in ancient times, buried alive the majority of female children. In many lands infanticide was regarded as a meritorious act on the part of a parent, done, as a precaution against famine, in the interests of the tribe. In other parts of the world, infanticide results from customs which impose heavy burdens on child-rearing. Of these artificial hardships the best example is afforded by India. ”

“ It was left for human intelligences to encompass the death of their children, both before birth and after, and it was left to the anti-Christian civilization of this nineteenth century also to discover and adopt the most revolting and barbarous means to accomplish this end. The crime of fœticide, or infanticide, is not of recent growth. Like every other crime, it has had a venerable existence, but its beastly development among us has been mainly the work of a few years. ”

“ In speaking of infanticide in Japan, let us not forget that every race and nation has been guilty of the same crime, and has continued to be guilty of it until delivered by Christianity.
Widespread infanticide proves a wide lack of natural affection. Poverty is, of course, the common plea. Yet infanticide has been practiced not so much by the desperately poor as by small land-holders. ”

“ On this point, let it be said that all sane and intelligent men and women agree that anything even approaching infanticide is nothing short of a crime, and that abortion, except for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is practically murder. ”

“ Connected with infanticide is another subject equally important, but of very difficult treatment; that is practices to destroy the infant before the birth. [364] In modern nations all such offences are theoretically visited with very severe punishment by the law, and public opinion so strongly condemns them that no one solicitous of upholding a respectable character in society will dare to be their apologist. ”

“ At the birth of a child, a special messenger was sent to notify relatives and intimate friends, who must soon visit the baby and take it presents, and especially so if it was the first in the family. Yet infanticide was not uncommon, for poverty sometimes decided against the infant, and this also might be true of a child born maimed or deformed. "In old days, when the new-born child was laid at the father's feet, the father could refuse to take it, and the child was then exposed to die in a bamboo-grove. ”

“ Unfortunately in such cases it is rarely possible to punish the foster-parents, since in the case of infants it is so difficult to determine precisely where ignorance, stupidity, and poverty end and infanticide by deliberate neglect begins. The law rightly prescribes severe penalties for infanticide; but we may well ask whether it is worse for a mother to suffocate her child immediately after its birth, or, by the lack of proper care, to inflict upon the infant a more tedious but no less certain doom. We often hear it asserted that such murderous baby-farming is in Europe a thing of the past. ”

“ Infant mortality bears heaviest upon male babies. It is largely, as I have so often said, a male infanticide, notably contrasting with the practice of deliberate female infanticide which is known in so many times and places. In lowering the infant mortality we shall reduce this disproportion of male deaths, and shall make for the survival of a larger number of men. Bring down the infant mortality to proper limits and we shall have in adult life possible male partners for a large number of women who are now without such because of the male infanticide of twenty and thirty years ago. ”

“ The practice of infanticide, so extensively found in India, was the direct result of this difficulty. For instance, among the noble race of Rajputs in North India it was found, some years ago, that, in a community of 30,000, there was not a single girl! Every daughter that was born was killed. The higher the rank of the family the more constant and systematic was the crime. ”

“ A good many times in my life I have heard the practice of passing the death sentence for the common crime of infanticide discussed by women, sometimes in an assemblage convened for the purpose, but more often where the subject has come up by chance. ”

“ The extent of infanticide in the capital has been calculated by the number of infants thrown out every night, and gathered by the police in the morning, to be buried in one common hole, without the city. ”

“ Infanticide, or child murder, is an enormity that our reason and feelings would lead us to reckon a crime of very rare occurrence. That it should exist at all is, at first view, surprising; that it should prevail to any extent is difficult of belief; that parents should be its perpetrators is in a high degree painful to imagine ”