Section 777

Inifanticide is the term for the act or practice of munliTiiii;' infants, which was very general among the ancients, and which still prevails among rnde nations. The Greeks and Romans, with all their high notions of civilization, were guilty of favoring this horrible prac- tice by legislative enactments, and Plato and Aristotle are found among its supporters. Thus, at Sjiarta, the law re(iuired that a child, immediately after birth, was to be exhibited to the authorities for inspection, and if its look was not wholesome, or its limbs crippled, " it was thrown into a deep cavern at the foot of the moun- tain Taygetus; and it was said that this law had a wholesome effect, for it made women with child very carefid as to their eating, drinking, and exercise, and hence they proved excellent nurses. In the other Gre- cian republics a similar disregard of the life of sickly infants was shown." Among the Komans it seems to have been the duty of the father to decide the fate of his new-born babe. Among the Norse a somewhat sim- ilar rule determined the life of the infant. If weak, or of the weaker sex, the father not unfreipiently "disap- proved of its living, and it was exposed to die by wild beasts or the weather." Among the barbaric tribes, child-murder prevails most extensively. Thus it is general throughout the whole of the South-Sea Islands, and is even a regular system among the Fijians (q. v.). In Yanu Levu, Ave are informed by a recent authority, "the extent of infanticide reaches nearer two thirds than one half of all the children born." Among the people of India, especially the Hindus, as well as the Brahmans, this evil prevailed to a very great extent, due no doubt, in a great measure, to the national preju- dice of remarriage of a widow (compare Max Mullcr, Chips from a German Workshop, ii, 312). But, since the rule of the English, laws have been enacted likely to modify the practice, if not to check it altogether. " The Rajputs, it is said, destroy all the female children but the first-born — a peculiar custom, due to its being a point of honor with a Rajput to nearly ruin himself in the marriage feast and portion of his daughter, so that he could not afford to have more than one. The ]Mo- hammedans were inclined to the same practice, but ef- fected their object by means of abortion. In New Hol- land the native w^omen think nothing of destroying by compression the infant in the womb, to avoid the trouble of rearing it alive. In China infanticide is supposed to be conmion. the chief cause being said to be the right of ))cri(>(lically repudiating their wives which is possess- ed by Chinamen. Some statistics, recently published in the Esperance of Nancy, indicate the fearful extent to which life is lost through this practice prevailing in so vast a population as that of China." Newcomb (Q/- clop. of Missions, pA87) says, ''It is computed from au- thentic data that not less than 9000 children are exposed in the streets of Peking every year, and as many more in the provinces, and that it is a part of the duty of the police to carry away in carts, every morning, those that have been exposed at night, some of whom are yet alive ; hut they are all carried to a pit withnvt the walls, and buried promiscuously." In Japan, poverty of the parent is deemed an admissible excuse for the destruction of an infant's life, and in Greenland the infant is buried with the mother, if she dies in or shortly after child- birth. The South American women commit the same atrocity as the poor parents of Japan. In Africa the Bushmen follow the practices that we detailed as prev- alent among the ancient Greeks and Romans; and so frequent has been the practice of feeding lions with in- fants' flesh, that " it has greatly increased the desire of the lion for human flesh." " In jNIadagascar the fate of the ir.fant depends upon the calculation of lucky and imlucky days." Among the North American Indians infanticide has also prevailed, and does still prevail very IV,— 0 o