BABY FARMING IN CANADA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1706, 8 November 1887, Page 4

BABY FARMING IN CANADA

+ Recent exposures m thin cliy, says a Bpeol*l from Montreal to the St Loaia Poet Diapatcb, regarding the treatment of foundlings, show that 35 per cent of the children die. The children are left at a certain establishment, and from there are 11 fumed out " to poor people In the city and suburbs, who are psid 10 cents a day per head to care for them. These pour people take almost no care of the infants, and simply starve them to d«Hth. The correspondent of the ' Dspa'ch" got a list of some of the people who have charge of the bable?, Bnd lately made a tour of Inspection. They bad beard that a visit wooid be paid to them, and most of them had made some preparation for it. The ' house of Mrs Dageual, a professional 11 baby farmer 'i at Saule-au-Reoolleot was fint visited. At the door of the house lay Ihlee little children, each with bare legs, breast and anna, with a frowzy bodioe around its middle, and a pleoe of dark cloth around its loins ; eaoh covered from bead to foot with large black files, which preyed voraciously upon tho soft flesh— cash exposed to the pitiless heat of the Ban, which poured down upon them m untempered severity. The house was small, •nd contained tbree apartments. In the kltohen was a etove, a table, and a " settle bed," and three rude rqu»re boxes upon lockers fur the uae of the children. The three children who had been upon the verandah were placed m two of these oribs la the third was a fourth child, but it was so small and so completely covered with flies that it was not eaßlly recognisable as human. It was a shocking eight of reflect and misery. Th* little • thing was breathing heavily It moaned feebly now and then, and we a Hy opened two inteasely blue e;o', In wh eh there was unutterable appeal. An indiarubber nipple, attuned to a bo' tie containing what looked like sour, curdled milk, hsd been thrust into Its month, and at this it sucked now and then, but was too feeble to draw the fiaid from the bottle. Its arms were hardly larger than a pipe-stem, ifs legs no thicker than a grown man's finger Its akin hung m loose folds upon its manikin frame, and its face had the look of age stamped upon It. The flies devoured every feature. An intolerable effluvia, heavy and sickening, exhalted fr< m the Hlrty clothes m the oracle. Of the four children odb will probably survive, but they are all wasted and have all suffered from neglect. They were all dirty, and all clutched at the india-rubber nipple, which, when the children are numerous, it not even attached to a milk bottle. At another place a child lay dying— starved to death. The third house had six children, all of them marked for death They were covered with flies. Ooe woman said she bad 24 children m her house m three yesre, and that all of tbero died. In nearly every place rlahed similar scenes met the eye, and the women who b»d charge of the unfortunates seemed utterly he«nlecß and cruel.