Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/14

I N F I N P older law of child murder under a statute of James I. consisted of cruel presumptions against the mother, and it was not till 1803 that trials for that offence were placed under the ordinary rules of evidence. There now is a presumption, said to be based on considerations of humanity, that every newborn child found dead is born dead until the contrary is very clearly shown. It is the opinion of the most eminent of British medical jurists that this presumption has tended to increase infanticide. Apart from this, the technical definition of human life has excited a good deal of comment and some indignation. The definition allows many wicked acts to go unpunished. The experience of assizes in England shows that many children are killed when it is impossible to prove that they were wholly born. The distinction taken by the law has probably by this time reached the minds of the class to which most of the unhappy mothers belong. Partly to meet this complaint, it was suggested to the Royal Com mission of 1866 that killing during birth, or within seven days thereafter, should be an offence punishable with penal servitude. The second complaint is of an opposite character, partly that infanticide by mothers is not a fit subject for capital punishment, and partly that, whatever be the intrinsic character of the act, juries will not convict or the executive will not carry out the sentence. Earl Russell gave expression to this feeling when he proposed that no capital sentence should be pronounced upon mothers for the killing of children within six months after birth. It is a statutory offence, under 24 & 25 Viet. c. 100, to administer poison or any noxious thing to a woman with child with intent to procure her miscarriage, or to use any instrument for the same purpose, the maximum punish ment being penal servitude for life. The previous law had drawn the distinction of " quick with child," and in such cases had punished capitally. It was a very old con troversy among the philosophers and physicians of antiquity, when the foetus ceased to be pars viscerum matris and became "vital," or, as it was afterwards called, "ani mate." The law has not yet succeeded in putting down the degraded and wicked trade in abortion. There can be no doubt from the French and American treatises of Gallard and Storer that the crime prevails extensively, and even in classes of society in which infanticide proper would not be thought of without a shudder. Under the same statute it is a misdemeanour punishable by two years imprisonment with hard labour, as a maximum, to endeavour to conceal the birth of a child by any secret disposition of its dead body, whether the child died before, after, or at its birth. This does not apply to very premature births, where it was impossible that the foetus should be alive. But it does apply to all those numerous cases where the child s body, without being actually hidden, is placed where it is not likely to be found except by accident, or upon search. Lastly, under the same statute it is a misdemeanour punishable by five years penal servitude, as a maximum, to abandon or expose a child under the age t)f two years, so as to endanger its life, or to inflict permanent injury, actual or probable, upon its health. It is difficult to say to what extent infanticide prevails in the United Kingdom. At one time a large number of children were murdered in England for the mere pur pose of obtaining the burial money from a benefit club. 1 Lu 1871 the House of Commons found it necessary to appoint a select committee "to inquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents." The trials of 1 See Itejmrt on the Sanitary Condition of the Lnfiouring Classes, "Supplementary Report on Interment in Towns," by Edwin Chad- wick (Parl. Papers, 1843, xii. 395); and The Social Condition and Education of the People, by Joseph Kay, 1850. Margaret Waters and Mary Hall called attention to the infamous relations between the lying-in houses and the baby-farming houses of London. The form was gone through of paying a ridiculously insufficient sum for the maintenance of the child. " Improper and insufficient food," said the committee, " opiates, drugs, crowded rooms, bad air, want of cleanliness, and wilful neglect are sure to be followed in a few months by diarrhoea, convulsions, and wasting away." These unfortunate children were nearly all illegitimate, and the mere fact of their being hand-nursed, and not breast-nursed, goes some way (according to the experience of the Foundling Hospital and the Magdalene Home) to explain the great mortality among them. Such children, when nursed by their mothers in the workhouse, generally live. The practical result of the committee of 1871 was the Act of 1872, 35 & 36 Viet. c. 38, which provides for the compulsory registration of all houses in which more than one child under the age of one year arc received for a longer period than twenty-four hours. No licence is granted by the justices of the peace, unless the house is suitable for the purpose, and its owner a person of good character and able to maintain the children. Offences against the Act, including wilful neglect of the children even in a suitable house, are punishable by a fine of 5 or six months imprisonment with or without hard labour. The law of Scotland also treats the unlawful killing of completely born infants as murder. In such cases a verdict of culpable homicide is usually returned, the punishment being entirely in the discretion of the court. Still more commonly the charge of concealment of pregnancy is made under the Act 49 Geo. III. c. 14, the maximum punishment being two years imprisonment. It must be shown that the woman concealed her condition during the whole period of pregnancy, and did not call for help at the birth. Unlawfully procuring abortion, whether by drugs or instruments, is also a crime known to the common law of Scotland, the punishment being penal servitude or imprisonment according to circumstances. In a variety of cases, which do not admit of general statement, convictions have also been obtained against parents of exposing and deserting children or placing them in danger, and of cruel and unnatural treatment and neglect. Infanticide will have to be further considered under the heading MEDICAL JURISPRUDENCE. For that branch of the subject the works of Tardieu and Taylor are the most important and recent authorities. See also White- head On Abortion and Sterility, and the works of Gallard and Storer already referred to. Bibliography. Besides a very large number of theses and special dissertations, and the chapters on the subject in the leading works in medical jurisprudence, the following are the most important works on infanticide. Ploucquet, Commcntarius Medicus inproccs- sus criminates super homicidio, infanticidio, &c., 1736; W. Hun ter, Uncertainty of the Signs of Murder in Bastard Children ; Olivard, DC I infanticide ct des moyens que Von employe pour le con- stater, Paris, 1802 ; Malion, An Essay on the Signs of Murder in Ncw-Born Children, translated by Johnson, Lancaster, 1813; -Arrowsmith, Medico-legal Essay on Infanticide, Edin., 1828 ; Cummin, Proofs of Infanticide Considered, London, 1836; Ryan, Child Murder in its Sanitary and Social Bearings, 1858, and Infan ticide, its Law, Prevalence, Prevention, and History, London, 1862; Kunzo, Der Kindermord, historisch u. kritisch dargcstcllt, Leipsic, 1860 ; Greaves, Observations on some of the causes of Infanticide, Manchester, 1863, and Observations on the Laws referring to Child Murder and Criminal Abortion, Manchester, 1864 ; Storer and Heard, Criminal Abortion, its Nature, Evidence, and Law, Boston, 1868 ; Tardieu, Etude med..-leg. et clinique sur Vavortement, Paris, 1864, and Etude med.-Ug. sur I infanticide,, Paris, 1880; Toul- mouche, Etudes sur I infanticidc et la grossesse cachee ou simuUe Paris, 1875 ; Gallard, Do I avortcmcnt au point de vue med.-lcg., Paris, 1878. There are several works describing Indian infanticide. The best known is Infanticide., its Origin, Progress, and Suppression, London, 1857, by J. Cave Browne. See also the works of Moore, Cormack, and Wilson. (W. C. S. ) INFANTRY. See ARMY.