A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

This however cannot be altogether true; for in the year 1622, P. Potier, or Poterius, a French chemist, who lived at Bologna, taught the preparation of it in his work already quoted, as did Kircher[1051 - Magnes, p. 481.] in 1641, and the jesuit Casati[1052 - De Igne. Franc. 1688, 4to, p. 350.] in 1686; though the process then employed was indeed not the best or most convenient; the proper method being first found out, after many accurate experiments, by the German chemist Marggraf, who showed also how similar light-magnets or luminous stones can be prepared from most of the heavy spars and fluor-spars[1053 - Marggrafs Chymische Schriften, ii. p. 119. This author says the cakes must be only as thick as the back of a knife; but that which I obtained in the year 1782 from Bologna, was an inch English measure in diameter, and two lines in thickness. It still weighs, after the brass box in which I long preserved it between cotton in a luminous state, has become black, and itself has lost its virtue, three drachms. In colour it has a perfect resemblance to the star which Marggraf prepared from German stones, and presented to Professor Hollman, and which is now in my possession. It is contained in a capsule of tin plate, over which a piece of glass is cemented.].

But even at present, those who prepare this stone for sale at Bologna talk in such a manner as if the secret were known to them alone. This was the case, in 1771, with the director of the institute in that city[1054 - Ferber’s Briefe aus Wälschland, p. 75.]. Keysler purchased a piece, as large as a dried fig pressed flat, for about two or three paoli.

I shall embrace this opportunity of bringing to recollection, from De Thou’s history of his own times, a relation which indeed contains many things incredible, and in all probability exaggerated, yet seems to be too well confirmed to be altogether rejected as false. If this be admitted, it may then be conjectured that, about the year 1550, either the Bologna stone, or what at present is called phosphorus and pyrophorus, was known to a few individuals. In the above year, when Henry II. king of France made his solemn entrance into the town of Boulogne, on its restoration by the English, a stone from India, which was not hard, which had a luminous appearance like fire, and which could not be touched without danger, was presented to him by a stranger. For the truth of this account De Thou refers to the testimony of J. Pipin, in a letter to Ant. Mizaud, who asserts that he himself saw the stone. Morhof, who seems inclined to consider this stone as that of the philosophers[1055 - Polyhist. i. 1, 13, 26, p. 127.], remarks that this passage is found in the first Paris edition in octavo, and in the Frankfort re-impressions, both in folio and octavo; but not in the other editions. He quotes also the words from the letter to Mizaud, which must be printed somewhere, but in what work I do not know. It appears that the historian inserted it almost without any change.

[We may take this opportunity of describing one or two other pyrophori: thus Canton’s pyrophorus is prepared by heating a mixture of three parts of sifted calcined oyster-shells with one part of flowers of sulphur to an intense heat for one hour; Homberg’s, by mixing equal weights of alum and brown sugar, and stirring the mixture over the fire in an iron ladle until quite dry; it is then put into an earthenware or coated glass bottle and heated red-hot as long as a flame appears at the mouth; it is then removed, carefully stopped and suffered to cool. The black powder which it contains becomes glowing hot when exposed for a few minutes to the air.]

FOUNDLING HOSPITALS

Child-murder is so unnatural a crime, that mankind can be brought to the commission of it only by the greatest desperation, for which unfortunately there is too much cause. To parents who are just able by incessant labour to procure those things indispensably necessary to support life, the birth of every child increases the fear of starving or of being reduced to beggary. Those who have secured to them a scanty subsistence, but who live amidst the torments of slavery, wish to the new-born child, which at any rate is doomed to death, a speedy dissolution, before it can know that it has had the misfortune to be brought into the world, in order that they may not bequeath to it their poverty. A young female who has acquired by education the most delicate sense of honour and shame, finds herself, on the birth of an illegitimate child, exposed at once to the utmost disgrace and contempt. Her misfortune, though viewed with an eye of pity by the compassionate, excites the hatred of the greater part of her relations and friends, by whom she was before loved and respected, and who endeavoured to render her happy; and often amidst the most poignant feelings, and an agitation bordering on madness, she sees no other means of saving her honour than the total concealment of her error by destroying the child: a resolution which, notwithstanding the vigilance of the laws, is too often attended with success. A young woman who at this moment finds herself suddenly despised and neglected by her admirer, who gained her affections by the most powerful of all means, love and confidence, and obtained from her what she can never recover, is often induced, in a fit of despair, to vent her fury on the consequences of her seduction – the child of her seducer.

These misfortunes of mankind are among the disadvantages attending civilised society, which always render marriage more difficult as well as burthensome, and thereby make it impossible to gratify one of the most powerful impulses of nature. In the savage state, parents require no more for themselves and their children than what they can easily obtain. The inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, who live at the greatest distance from all culture, find shell-fish and esculent plants sufficient to appease their hunger; never are their thoughts disturbed by care for the maintenance of a child. The black slaves in St. Domingo say, that “it is only the white man who begs;” and indeed in this they are right[1056 - The negroes in St. Domingo cannot bear to be thought poor, or to be called beggars. They say none but white men beg; and when any one asks alms at the door, they observe to their master, “There is a poor white man, or a poor Frenchman, begging.” Labat had a negro who gave away a small part of his property, merely that he might have the proud satisfaction of being able to say, “There, white man; there is an alms for you.” But, in all probability, there will be beggars even in St. Domingo, if the negroes are so fortunate as to establish the freedom which they have obtained at the expense of so much blood, and to form a negro state.]. Beggars exist only where they are established by religion and governments which command them to be fed. But the transition from living by one’s own industry to beggary is, in consequence of the shame attending it, most painful and insupportable to those who with the greatest exertion and waste of strength, amidst the privation of every comfort, are exposed with their children to the horrors of famine. On the other hand, to those who, in our states, are obliged to eat the bread of mendicity, children are a blessing; because as long as they are incapable of running alone, they increase their alms by exciting greater compassion, and afterwards by begging in the streets[1057 - During a great scarcity at Hamburgh, when bread was distributed to the poor, one woman told another, to whose request no attention had been paid, that she brought her child with her, and pinching it so as to make it cry, excited compassion and by these means received bread. The latter begged the other to lend her the child for the like purpose, and having made it cry obtained bread also; but when she returned and wished to restore the child with thanks, the mother was not to be found, and therefore she was obliged to keep the child.].

It is not therefore poverty already reduced to the state of beggary, but the dread of being at length overwhelmed notwithstanding every exertion to swim against the stream, that occasions child-murder. The same is the effect of slavery, which excludes the possibility of even hoping for a change to a better condition. The serfs of a hard-hearted land-proprietor, who however acted according to the established laws, entered into a resolution to get no children, that they might not be under the necessity of putting any of them to death[1058 - In the course of nine years not a single individual announced an intention of marrying. The young people supplied their wants in another manner. Hence arose a scarcity of men, who cannot be purchased in Europe, as in the West Indies. The proprietor, therefore, was obliged to sell his estate. The purchaser improved the condition of his serfs, and marriages became common among them. See Büsch vom Geld-umlauf. vi. 3. § 35, p. 393. “La dureté du gouvernement peut aller jusqu’à detruire les sentimens naturels, par les sentimens naturels mêmes. Les femmes de l’Amerique ne se faisoient-elles pas avorter, pour que leurs enfans n’eussent pas des maîtres aussi cruels?” – Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix. Amst. 1758, 12mo, ii. p. 402.]. The sense of honour becomes stronger the more the manners approach towards a certain degree of refinement; and it is proved that it is this cause which, in most instances, gives rise to child-murder. In vain have legislators endeavoured to prevent this crime by capital punishment, more cruel than the crime itself. But indeed it is difficult, or rather impossible, to proportion punishment to delinquency or the just degree of guilt.

It needs excite no wonder that many states where the Christian religion was not introduced, and even the Jewish, made no law against child-murder, though the atrocity of it was never denied[1059 - See an Enquiry by Michaelis, why Moses did not introduce into his laws anything in regard to child-murder.]. To render this crime less frequent, men fell upon the way of exposing children, in the hope that they might be found by benevolent persons, who would educate and maintain them. Parents imagined that in this manner less violence was offered to humanity, and they could more easily be induced to resign their children to chance than to become their murderers. They consoled themselves with the possibility, proved by various examples, that the exposed children might be saved, and be more fortunate than their parents[1060 - The cause of children being exposed in this manner has been assigned and ably examined by Lactantius, vi. 20, 21; from whose remarks one will readily comprehend how parents could be so hard-hearted.]. To promote this, they deposited them in places where a great many people might be expected soon to pass, and where the child would consequently be found before it should perish by cold and hunger or be devoured by ravenous animals.

With this view they made choice of the market-places, temples, places where two or more highways met, wells, the banks of rivers or the sea-shore, from which water was brought or which were the usual places of bathing; and even, when the children were placed in the water, means were contrived that they should at any rate float some time without being injured. For this purpose they were placed in small chests, trays, or close baskets, or wrapped up in waterproof bandages[1061 - Many preparations for this purpose may be seen quoted in Hofmanni Lexicon Universale: art. Exponendi mos.]. At Athens children were commonly exposed in that place called cynosarges, which was one of the gymnasia. At Rome the most usual place was that pillar called columna lactaria, which stood in the market where kitchen vegetables were sold[1062 - Pomp. Festus de Verb. Signif. p. 203.].

When the exposure of children in civilised states began to be condemned as unlawful, it was however suffered to pass unpunished, even under the first Christian emperors. Legislators only endeavoured by regulations of every kind to render it less common, and to provide for the maintenance of children; until at last, through horror at the cruelty of it, but without thinking of the causes or attempting to remove them, they conceived the unfortunate idea, in order to guard against this crime, of declaring it to be murder, and punishing it as such. It became then much safer for parents to bury children, or to throw them into the sea, than to run the chance of exposing themselves to the utmost shame and punishment, when they were searched out and discovered. In Greece, but not at Thebes in Bœotia[1063 - Aristot. Polit. vii. 16.], the exposure of children was permitted and common, and therefore many of the Greek historians mention the contrary as a foreign but meritorious custom. Strabo[1064 - Lib. xvii.], on this account, praises the Egyptians, and Ælian[1065 - Variæ Histor. ii. 7.] extols the laws of the Thebans against the killing and exposing of children. This cruel practice was equally common at Rome. Romulus however, who was himself a foundling, endeavoured to restrain it, and his order was confirmed in the twelve tables; but as population, luxury, scarcity, and dissipation increased, it became customary for those who had more children than they wished, to expose some of them. Many deposited with them rings and other costly ornaments; and those who were poorer, trinkets of little value, partly to entice people to receive the children, and partly that, by describing these appendages, when the children were grown up, or their own circumstances had become better, they might be able to recover them.

Even at present, in many places, the children carried to foundling hospitals are accompanied by tokens, which are carefully preserved, as is the case in the Spedale degl’ Innocenti at Florence, where a piece of lead imprinted with a number is hung round the neck of each babe, in such a manner that it cannot be easily removed, and occasions no inconvenience in the wearing. By these means one can obtain information there, even at a late period, in regard to each child[1066 - Such appendages or tokens were called crepundia. Instances of their use may be found in Heliodor. Æthiop. iv. 7., also in many comedies.].

It is mentioned by Tacitus[1067 - De Mor. Germ. cap. 19.], as a circumstance deviating from the Roman manners, that the old Germans considered child-murder as a crime; and where he speaks of the peculiarities of the Jews, he does not fail to relate the same thing of them[1068 - Histor. v. 5.]. Dionysius of Halicarnassus bestows the like praise on the Aborigines[1069 - Lib. i. cap. 16.].

When the morals of mankind began to be improved under the influence of Christianity, its followers endeavoured by every means in their power to banish from among them this cruelty, on account of which they so bitterly reproached the Romans[1070 - Minucii Felicis Octav. xxx. xxxi.]. The first Christian emperors, however, did not venture to forbid it as a crime; though Constantine called exposure a kind of murder, and wisely exerted himself to remove the causes of it. By an order issued in the year 331, he endeavoured to deter parents from it, as he there deprived them of all hope of being able to claim or recover exposed children, even if they should make good the expenses incurred by those who had maintained them[1071 - Cod. Theodos. lib. v. tit. 7, De Expositis, l. 1, p. 487, edit. Ritteri, where the whole has been proved and illustrated by Gothofredus.]. This cruel practice was nevertheless continued for a long time after. Lactantius[1072 - Lactant. vi. 20, 21.], who lived under the reign of Constantine, describes it as a still prevailing remnant of barbarity; and Julius Firmicus, who wrote about the year 336, considered it worth his while to give particular instructions for casting the nativity of foundlings[1073 - Astronom. lib. vii. c. 1. I shall refer those desirous of becoming acquainted with all the proofs belonging to this subject to Ger. Noot, Opera Omnia, Col. 1732, fol. p. 493. The observations on Minucius Felix, pp. 307 and 326, in the beautiful edition Lugd. Bat. 1709, 8vo, deserve in particular to be read.]. The exposure of children was not completely prohibited till the time of Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, in the last half of the fourth century[1074 - Cod. Justin. lib. iv. tit. 52.].

One cannot, without reluctance, believe that this barbarous practice was so long permitted, or remained unpunished, in civilised states; but it must be mentioned, to the honour of antiquity, that in many countries the care of government was directed at an early period to exposed children. Not only were means pursued in Greece and Rome to encourage the reception and educating of foundlings, by assigning them as property to those who took them under their protection; but it was also made a law, that foundlings who were not received by private persons should be educated at the public expense. At Thebes, where, as already observed, child-murder and the exposure of children were forbidden, parents in needy circumstances were desired to carry their new-born children to the government, and the latter committed them into the hands of those who engaged to take the best care of them for the least money. In the like manner, at present, foundlings are placed with nurses to be maintained at the cheapest rate; but with this difference, that at Thebes the children became slaves for life to those by whom they were educated, whereas in our times, when they grow up they are free people and learn to gain a livelihood for themselves.

The humane decrees of the emperor Constantine the Great, both for Italy and Africa, the first in the year 315, and the second in 322, deserve here to be mentioned. The governments in those countries were enjoined to prevent the murder, sale, giving in pawn, or the exposure of children, by taking care that parents who were too poor to educate their offspring, should receive from the public treasury or magazines, or from the emperor’s privy purse, as we say at present, food, clothing and other necessaries; and as new-born children required immediate attention, that this should be done without any delay[1075 - Codex. Theodos. lib. xi. tit. 27.].

The conjecture of Gothofredus, that the emperor was induced to adopt these measures by the urgent representation of Lactantius, appears to me highly probable. This writer, from the year 317, had been tutor to prince Crispus, and had before dedicated or transmitted to the emperor his book, wherein he painted, in glowing colours, the detestable practice of parents then prevalent, which gave rise to the greatest disorders; and on that account he offered them the specious advice not to beget more children than they were able to maintain. I am inclined to think that this advice did not much please the emperor, who was obliged to keep on foot a numerous army; and as it could not be very agreeable to many married persons, he comprehended this recommendation of prudence or moderation among those calamities from which he was desirous to preserve parents by the above decrees.

After these imperial orders, children remained with their parents, and were educated by them; but it appears that the cities of Athens and Rome had, at an early period, public orphan-houses, in which children were educated at the public expense. What has been already said of the gymnasium called cynosarges may serve as a proof; and Festus and Victor make it still more certain that there was an institution of this kind at the columna lactaria. At any rate there can be no doubt that, in the sixth century, there were houses at Rome for the reception of deserted children.

The emperor Justinian, who by a particular law, in the year 529, declared foundlings to be free, and forbade those by whom they were received and educated to treat them and detain them as slaves[1076 - Cod. lib. viii. tit. De Infant. Expos. l. 3.], often introduces these establishments, under the appellation of brephotrophium, in his laws respecting donations to churches and other beneficent institutions[1077 - Cod. lib. i. tit. 2, De Sacrosanctis Eccles. 19, p. 19: “Si quis vero donationes usque ad 500 solidos in quibuscunque rebus fecerit, vel in sanctam ecclesiam, vel in xenodochium, vel in nosocomium, vel orphanotrophium, vel in ptochotrophium, vel in gerontocomium, vel in brephotrophium, vel in ipsos pauperes, vel in quamcunque civitatem; istæ donationes”… The same names are repeated in the law 23 immediately following; also in Novell. Collat. 8, tit. 12, cap. 1, p. 219, and Coll. 9, tit. 3, cap. 1, p. 245. Here not only foundling hospitals, but poor-houses in particular, are mentioned. The former are named also in Cod. lib. 1, tit. 3, De Episc. et Clericis, l. 32, p. 32, and in the same l. 42, 5 and 9; likewise l. 46, 1.]. This word, composed of the Greek term brephos a child, and trepho to educate, seems to show that houses of this kind were established at an earlier period in the cities of Greece, and were only imitated at Rome; though of this I have as yet found no proof. Du Cange and Stephen have both introduced the word in their Greek dictionaries, but refer only to the Justinian code. Gesner, in Stephen’s lexicon, makes a distinction between brephotrophium and curotrophium; the latter, it is said, means a house in which grown-up and not new-born children are educated, and the same thing is repeated in the same words in Calvini Lexicon Juridicum. Both assert that this word, formed from κοῦρος or κόρος, puer, is used by Justinian, but does not occur in the book of laws, nor is used by Brisson. It is not to be found in the dictionary of Basle nor in Stephen’s Greek Lexicon, but both these have the word κουροτρόφος, which indeed occurs in Homer and in Hesiod. As Calvin and Gesner refer to Hottoman, I am inclined to think that the word was coined by him, especially as Gesner in the Thesaurus of Faber says, “Curotrophium potest dici domus alendis parvulis destinata.”

It is rather astonishing that no mention of the oldest institutions of this kind, or of their establishment, is to be found in the works of the ancients. There is reason however to conjecture, that as long as the sale of children and the slavery of foundlings were permitted, the number of those maintained at the public expense could not be very great. But respecting the brephotrophia, even under the later Christian emperors, nothing is said to be found that can give us any idea of the manner in which they were regulated; nothing in regard to the place from which the nurses were procured, or how food and clothing were provided for the children, and as little in regard to the number of children reared in these benevolent institutions who lived to become old.

It might be satisfactory to know, whether the oldest institutions of this kind were more fortunate in answering the object of their establishment than our expensive orphan-houses are at present.

The great difficulties which attend institutions of this kind are, no doubt, the chief cause why mention of them so seldom occurs during the later centuries, in which the foundation of hospitals, and donations to these and other pious establishments, were so numerous; they are however found so often, that it is impossible to consider them as an invention of modern times. I shall here point out those instances which have hitherto occurred to me; but must first observe, that many more will be found in perusing the lives of saints, and the history of convents, religious orders, churches and towns. Wherever they are mentioned, they are always under the inspection of the clergy.

The oldest establishment for orphans in Germany, which I can mention at present, is that at Triers, in the eighth, or seventh, or even sixth century; the account of it is to be found in the life of St. Goar, who lived at Triers under Childebert, consequently in the last half of the sixth century. His historians or panegyrists relate that, being accused before archbishop Rusticus of many misdemeanours, as a proof of his innocence he hung up his hood upon one of the sun’s rays, which entered his cell, as if upon a nail, and that his enemies were still so incredulous as to consider him guilty. The archbishop then, continue they, to whom a new-born child, which had been deposited in the marble conch before the church-door, had been brought, asked him, as a proof of his sanctity, whether he could tell the father of it; upon which Goar, after a most fervent prayer, commanded the child, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to declare who were its parents. The child, with a clear voice, immediately named its mother, and also its father, the archbishop himself, who in consequence was deprived of his dignity[1078 - The life of St. Goar is to be found in Acta Sanctorum, Jul. 2, pp. 327–346; also in Mabillon’s Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, Venetiis, 1733, fol. p. 266; but at page 273 of Mabillon there is another life by Wandelbart, in which the story is fuller and more circumstantial.].

The small portion of truth contained in this ridiculous story is, that, at the time when the author wrote, there was an establishment for foundlings at the church of Triers; that the children were deposited in a marble conch placed before the church; that they were received by poor people maintained in order to watch the church, and who were called matricarii, because they were matriculated in it, and by them carried immediately to the bishop, and that the child under his sanction was given to some person in the community who agreed to take care of it. These foster-parents were named nutricarii. It may be thence easily perceived, that there were then no orphan-houses properly so called, in which children are educated; but that the children, as is the case in our institutions for the poor, were given to others to be nursed, and in all probability the clergy paid to the nutricarii a certain sum from the alms destined for that purpose.

One of the lives which relates to the silly tale already mentioned was written by an author who, according to the opinion of Mabillon, lived at a period not much later than St. Goar. The other is by Wandelbart, who lived in the ninth century, and who refers for his authorities to old manuscripts and other documents, vetusta et perantiqua exemplaria. It may therefore with safety be asserted, that this establishment for foundlings existed at Triers in the eighth century. The annalists of Triers, indeed, do not mention any bishop named Rusticus who lived about that period; but no doubt needs be excited on that account, as this difficulty may be solved in more ways than one[1079 - Meusel’s Geschichtforscher, iv. p. 232.].

In the seventh century there were similar establishments at Anjou, or Angers, in France. St. Magnebodus, who was bishop of that place, where he died, and was buried in the church called at present Saint Mainbeuf, is praised in a very old life of him, never yet printed, for having caused several houses for the rearing of children to be erected[1080 - Du Cange, under the word brephotrophium, has quoted the passage.].

In the following century, that is about the year 787, an arch-priest named Datheus, established at Milan, at his own expense, a foundling hospital, in order to put a stop to the crime of child-murder, which had been introduced, and of which he gives a very affecting account in the letter of foundation. With this view he purchased a house near the church, and issued an order that the foundlings (jactati) should be suckled in it by hired nurses, and educated for seven years. They were to be taught some handicraft; to be supplied in the establishment with food, clothing and shoes, and at the age of seven to be discharged as free-born[1081 - Muratori has printed the letter of foundation in Antiq. Ital. Medii Ævi, t. iii. p. 587.]. It deserves to be remarked, that the mothers of children carried to such establishments strewed salt between the swaddling-clothes, when they wished to announce that the child had not been baptized. This perhaps had a reference to the circumstance of new-born children being washed in salt water; but I conjecture that the salt thus interspersed was meant to denote that the child had not been washed, and much less baptized.

In the capitulary of Charlemagne we meet with all the loci venerabiles of the Justinian code: xenodochium, ptochotrophium, nosocomium, orphanotrophium[1082 - “In quo parentibus orbati pueri pascuntur.” These orphan-houses then were expressly distinguished from the foundling hospitals.], gerontocomium, and also brephotrophium[1083 - Baluzii Capitularia Reg. Franc. i. p. 747; Capit. lib. ii. 29.]. But at that time, at least among the Franks, the foundlings belonged to those by whom they had been received and educated, unless they were demanded back by their parents or relations within ten days[1084 - In the Capitulare, composed about the year 744, in Baluz. p. 151.]. It is not improbable that the same practice prevailed at this time in other countries; and perhaps the founder of the foundling hospital at Milan, on this account, declared so expressly that the children, when they grew up, were to be discharged from the institution, as persons born free.

In the year 1168, St. Galdinus, cardinal and archbishop of Milan, exercised great severity against heretics; but took particular care of the poor, who believed what he taught; namely, that the hospital there considered itself obliged, not only to receive the sick, but also such children as might be exposed in the city, and to provide them with food and clothing[1085 - See Muratori Antiq. Ital. Medii Ævi, iii. p. 591.].

In 1070 Olivier de la Trau founded at Montpellier an order, the members of which called themselves hospitalarii, sive spiritus. They entered into an engagement to take care of the poor as soon as possible, and to provide for the maintenance and education of foundlings and orphans. In the course of a little time they spread themselves into different countries; and wherever they went, the effects of their benevolent vow are still to be found. Some say that the institution for foundlings, or the Hospital of the Holy Ghost, at Montpellier, was established in the year 1180. In 1201 they settled at Rome, and, according to the testimony of historians, formed there an establishment of the same kind, after they had been confirmed by Pope Innocent III., in the year 1198, and obtained for that purpose an elegant mansion, fitted up in the best manner. In the papal bulls mention is made of many convents founded by this order; and I am inclined to think that those who might take the trouble to examine thoroughly the confused history of these hospitallers, or of this order of the Holy Ghost, and of the still existing hospitals distinguished by that title, would find much information in regard to this subject. I call the history confused, because there have been many kinds of hospitallers and similar orders, and these have often been confounded with each other[1086 - See Greg. Rivii Monastica Historia Occidentis. Lips. 1737, 8vo cap. 34. The name of the author was Lauterbach.].

Our neighbourhood had similar establishments at an early period. At any rate there was one of this kind at Einbeck, before the year 1274, that is to say, an hospital of the Holy Ghost. It began to be built by duke Albert, who brought Einbeck to the house of Brunswick, when it submitted to him in 1272, in order to get rid of the importunity of count von Dassel. Alms were collected for its establishment and maintenance; and to promote these, the council issued recommendations, or letters-patent, in which it was expressly stated, that not only the indigent, and among these foreigners, were received into their hospital, but also orphans and foundlings, who were maintained and educated till they grew up. Such recommendations were from time to time repeated, for one still exists of the year 1300, which is a literal transcript of that issued in 1274. I do not believe that the hospital at Einbeck was established by the order before-mentioned; at any rate, hospitals of the Holy Ghost occur chiefly in the twelfth and two following centuries; and were founded, not by hospitallers, but established perhaps upon their model.

In this manner a rich citizen of Nuremberg, Conrad Heinz, surnamed der Grosse, founded the hospital of the Holy Ghost, in 1331. It began to be built in 1333, and was completed in 1341. Neither in the letter of foundation, however, nor in the confirmation, are foundlings particularly named; but it may be readily seen that this institution received poor pregnant women, and educated the children which were either born in it or admitted into it. In the like manner pregnant females, both married and unmarried, and also foundlings, are received into the hospital of St. John, at Turin. The founder of the house at Nuremberg made it a rule, that the day of the birth or reception of each child should be written down, in order that the expense incurred by it might be known, in case it should ever be able and inclined to repay it[1087 - The documents may be found in Von Murr Beschreibung der Merkw. in Nürnberg, 1801, 8vo.].

The magnificent foundling hospital at Florence, called at present Spedale degl’ Innocenti, was founded in 1316, by one Pollini. There can be little doubt that this is the same establishment for which the well-known Camaldule monk, Ambrosius, often mentioned under his family name Traversari, solicited support from the pope, in the beginning of the fifteenth century. He boasts that the foundlings received by this institution, which he calls brephotrophium, were first given to nurses to be suckled, and then admitted into the house and instructed. Girls fit for marriage were furnished with a portion. Citizens also were accustomed to send their children to be educated in the school of this hospital[1088 - Martenne, Vet. Script. amplis. Collectio. Paris, 1724, fol. iii. p. 15.].

L’Hopital du S. Esprit, at Paris, is said to have been founded in 1362, and various persons out of compassion for the exposed children contributed the money necessary to its support. A brotherhood, called la Confrairie du S. Esprit, established to conduct the affairs of the institution, was confirmed the same year by pope Urban V.

Paris, however, from time to time obtained more institutions of this kind. In the year 1638 a widow devoted her house to this purpose, and on that account it was called la Maison de la Couche, a name still given to the foundling hospital at the church of Notre Dame. But it was soon found necessary to abandon this well-meant institution, in consequence of the shameful abuses which had crept into it. The nurses often sold the children to beggars, who distorted or mutilated their limbs, in order that they might excite more compassion, and thereby obtain greater alms. Many were purchased also for magical purposes. The price for each was twenty sous.

St. Vincent de Paule, of the congregation St. Lazare, founded, in 1640, a new institution, which in 1670 was transferred to the street Notre Dame. It obtained new improvements by the chancellor Etienne d’Aligre and his lady Elizabeth Luillier. At present this house is known under the name l’Hopital des Enfans Trouvés, or de Notre Dame de la Misericorde.

That an institution for foundlings at Venice, named before the destruction of the republic Della Pietá, was established in 1380, by a Franciscan named Petruccio, I have somewhere read, but in what author I do not at present remember.

In England a proposal for a similar institution was made so early as 1687; but the present foundling hospital was not established till the year 1739[1089 - [The foundling hospital of London was founded in the year 1739, by charter of king George II., on the petition of captain Thomas Coram, and the memorial of sundry persons of quality and distinction. It maintains and educates 500 children, from extreme infancy to a period of life when they are capable of being placed out in the world. Illegitimate children are the objects of this hospital. The child must be under twelve months old when offered for admission, and the committee require to be satisfied of the previous good character and present necessity of the mother, and that the father has deserted both mother and infant; and that the reception of the infant will, in all probability, be the means of replacing the mother in the course of virtue and the way of an honest livelihood.]]. I shall not however enlarge further on the modern institutions of this kind: my object was to show that they are by no means a new invention, and that they have been continued from the oldest periods to the present time through all ages, and even in those which we are accustomed to call barbarous.

In our times most of the foundling hospitals have been suffered to fall to decay; chiefly because, to answer the benevolent purpose for which they are intended, they would require to be on a larger scale and better supported than it is possible for them to be at present; also because they do not entirely prevent child-murder, as they are not capable of completely removing the causes of it. After the establishment of the foundling institution at Cassel, not a year passed without some children being found murdered, either in that place or its neighbourhood. To this may be added also, that it is impossible with the utmost exertion to provide sound nurses for the continually increasing number of children brought in, and to ensure to them sufficient attention.

From the year 1763 to the end of 1781 the number of children brought into the foundling hospital at Cassel amounted to 740, of whom no more than eighty-eight remained alive at the end of the latter year. More than one half of them died under the age of eight, and scarcely ten attained to their fourteenth year. In Paris, in the year 1790, more than 23,000, and in 1800 about 62,000 children were brought in[1090 - [The number of illegitimate births in France is truly fearful. In 1831 there were 71,411, about 1-13th of the total number of births; in Paris the proportion is still larger, being about one in every three births! – Penny Cyclopædia.]]. In 1790, of the children which had been brought in between 1774 and that period, 15,000 only were alive; and it is estimated that 11/13 of all the children brought in perish annually through hunger or neglect. Of 100 foundlings in the foundling hospital at Vienna, 54½ died in the year 1789. In 1797, the nurses in the foundling hospital at Metz had for fourteen months received no wages, and calculation showed that 7/8ths of the whole children perished. In an institution of this kind, in a certain German principality, only one of the foundlings in twenty years attained to manhood, and yet the establishment had cost the country annually 20,000 dollars at least. The education of no German prince ever cost so much.

The case with foundling hospitals is the same as with the artificial breeding of fowls; it is easy to obtain chickens, but for want of maternal feeding and care it is almost impossible to rear them. Of what use then is it to collect chickens?

ORPHAN HOUSES

As so ancient proofs are found of public attention paid to foundlings, it may be readily supposed that in well-regulated states care was employed at an early period to provide also for the maintenance and education of orphans. There is reason to believe that this was the case at Thebes, which took under its protection the children of all poor parents. Solon made a law, that children whose fathers had fallen in the defence of their country should be educated at the expense and under the inspection of government[1091 - Diogen. Laert. i. § 55, and the observation of Menage. This law is praised by Plato in Menexenus, and by Demosthenes, adversus Macartatum.]. The same thing was customary among the Iasei, who inhabited an island on the western coast of Caria[1092 - Heraclides de Politiis, added to the addition of Aristot. Politic. Heinsii, Lugd. Bat. 1621, 8vo, p. 1004.].

At Rome children maintained at the public expense were called pueri alimentarii, and puellæ alimentariæ[1093 - Mention is made of them several times in the Roman code of laws, L. 8, § 9, et § 24, D. de Transact. L. pen. § 1, D. ad leg. Falcid. See also Ælii Spart. Vita Adriani, c. 7. – Æl. Capitolin. Vita Antonini. P. cap. 8. – Vita Pertin. c. 9, p. 555. – Æl. Lamprid. Vita Alexandri Severi, c. 44, p. 995.].

The emperor Trajan was the first who formed large establishments for this purpose; and the children maintained in them were called, from his family name, pueri Ulpiani. Pliny relates in his panegyric, that he had caused five thousand free-born children to be sought out and educated. It is more than probable that he suffered them to remain with their parents, and that those who were unable to educate them themselves, received a monthly or annual allowance in corn or money. Orphans perhaps were given out to board at a certain fixed sum. It deserves to be remarked, that the emperor in this manner might afford assistance, not only to such as were depressed by poverty, but also to persons of distinction who were not able, according as we say at present, to support their families in a manner suitable to their rank. To have an offspring therefore was not a misfortune, but rather a blessing. Children were begotten in order that the parents might take advantage of this beneficence, as some people build houses that they may obtain the offered premium; and the large capitals required were not taken from the public treasury, but from the emperor’s own privy purse. That these establishments might exist after his death, the money in different parts destined for their support was laid out on land, which produced a perpetual income. This is shown by a letter of foundation for the town of Veleia[1094 - This city was situated at no great distance from Piacenza (Placentia). It is mentioned by Horace, Pliny and Phlego Trallianus de Longævis, i. p. 114. See Cluverii Ital. p. 1259.], which is still extant.

In the year 1747, some peasants while ploughing in the neighbourhood of Placentia found, together with several other antiquities, a copper-plate five and a half feet in height and ten and a half in breadth, which weighed 600 pounds. They broke it in great haste, because they expected to find under it a treasure, and sold the pieces as old copper. One of these having fallen into the hands of the learned count Giovanni Roncovieri, he remarked that it contained a part of a public document belonging to the reign of Trajan. With much trouble and at considerable expense he at length collected all the pieces, the possessors of which, on account of the eagerness shown to obtain them, expected for them a high price, and thus was the means of saving one of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity, a complete document in regard to the imperial establishment for the community of Valeia[1095 - This remarkable inscription was first printed at Florence in 1749, by itself, with the title Exemplar Tabulæ Trajanæ pro Pueris et Puellis Alimentariis Reip. Veleiatium. Secondly, in Museum Veronense, Veronæ, 1749, fol., to which some explanations are added. Thirdly, in Histoire de la Jurisprudence Romaine, par A. Terrasson. Paris, 1750, fol. in the Appendix, pp. 27–43.]. The inscription forms six hundred and seventy lines, and is divided into seven columns, over which stands the following title: “Obligatio. praediorum. ob. H – S. deciens. quadraginta. quatuor. milia. vt. ex. indulgentia. optimi maximique. principis. imp. caes. Nervae. Trajani. Aug. Germanici. Dacici. pueri. puellaeque. alimenta. accipiant. legitimi. n. CCXLV. in. singulos H – S. XVI. n. f. H – S XLVII. XL n. legitimae. n. XXXIV. sing. H – S. XII. n. f. H – S. IV. DCCCXCVI. spurius I. H – S. CXLIV. spuria. I. H – S. CXX. summa. H – S. LIICC. quae. sit vsura 55 5 55 sortis. supra. scriptae.”

Trajan therefore laid out a capital of 1,044,000 sesterces at five per cent. interest on forty-six farms around Valeia, which town or community was destined for this establishment. These farms formed the mortgage, and on that account are particularly named, together with the sum for which they were security. The annual interest amounted to 52,200 sesterces. Of this sum 245 boys born in wedlock received monthly sixteen sesterces each, which in a year makes 47,040; and 34 girls of the same description twelve sesterces monthly, making in a year 4896 sesterces. Besides these, one illegitimate male child received yearly 144 sesterces, and one illegitimate female child 120 sesterces. These different sums amounted exactly to the interest of the capital laid out.

It is hardly worth while to reduce these sums to our present currency. For even if we should calculate how many pounds or shillings the silver contained in 1,044,000 sesterces would make, this result would not give us the real value, because we have no standard by which the relative value can be determined; that is to say, it is not known what proportion silver and copper bore in those periods to the prices of the necessaries of life. The price of grain proposed by Unger as a standard, can be employed only for later times, when corn began to be a more general article of trade.

However, Trajan’s capital, according to our money at present, makes about 54,375 dollars, and the sum of the interest 2718 dollars; consequently a legitimate male child obtained yearly ten dollars, and a legitimate female child between seven and eight dollars. Such is the calculation made from the principles laid down in Romé de l’Isle’s Metrology by Professor Hegewisch, who has endeavoured also to compare some pieces in the time of Trajan with those at present.

It appears, therefore, that among 300 children the emperor admitted only two illegitimate; and Professor Hegewisch is inclined to believe that this was the actual proportion at that time; which indeed would induce one to form a very favourable opinion of the state of public morals, under the reign of Trajan, in the district above named.