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donated four thousand francs per year to the charity. Inasmuch as in the long history of the child's fight for a place in the government, this was the first recognition by a government since the Roman emperors, it is interesting to read Louis's own statement in the preamble of the letters patent relating to this gift:

"Having been informed by persons of great piety, that the little attention which has been given up to the present to the nourishing and care of the parentless children exposed in the city and outskirts of Paris has been the cause of death, and even has it been known that they have been sold for evil purposes, and this having brought many ladies to take care of these children, who have worked with so much zeal and charitable affection that their zeal is spreading, and wishing so much to do what is possible under the present circumstances, we have," etc.

I

The example of Louis was followed in 1641 by his widow, Anne of Austria, who made an annual gift of 8000 francs. She had become regent and, speaking in the name of the young King, said that "imitating the piety and the charity of the late King, which are truly royal virtues, he adds to this first gift, another annual gift of 8000 francs. Thanks to what has already been given and the charity of individuals, the greater number of the

At that time Louis was at war with Germany in the PaysBas and in Cologne, and the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars had just been discovered.

infants rescued have been raised, and there are now more than four hundred living."

In June, 1670, Louis XIV. made the children's hospital one of the institutions of Paris, and authorized it to discharge the functions and enjoy the privileges of such an institution.

"As there is no duty more natural," he declared, "and none that conforms more to the idea of Christian charity than to care for the unfortunate children who are exposed-their feebleness and their misfortune making them doubly worthy of our compassion . . . considering also that their protection and safeguarding is to our advantage inasmuch as some of them may become soldiers, others workmen, inhabitants of the colonies," etc."

The edict declared that while the expenses of the institution had reached forty thousand francs a year, the royal donation could not exceed twelve thousand francs, and the King exhorted the women of charity who had done so much, to continue their notable work.

This royal recognition of the great institution at Paris was not without evil effect in the provinces. The nobles and the civic authorities of rural communities, wishing to get rid of the burden of the infants deserted within their jurisdiction, had the unfortunates taken to Paris. They were usually carried there by men who were driving in on other business, and as many stops were

Terme et Monfalcon, p. 100.

Gaillard, p. 92.

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made between the starting point and the destination, and as the drivers were more interested in other things than in the infant baggage, for which they were paid in advance, the mortality greatly increased.

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"There was hardly a town in the kingdom," said Latyone, "where abandoned children were admitted freely and without information being requested. In the towns that were not too far from Paris, they were carried thirty and forty leagues, at the risk of having them die on the way; and the hospital at Paris was overcrowded and in debt."

This condition of affairs led to a new law, after a report which declared that of two thousand infants carried to Paris from the provinces, in all sorts of weather, by public vehicles without care or protection, three quarters had died within three months. The new law decreed that any wagoner bringing an infant to Paris to expose it would be fined one thousand livres. Inasmuch as the rule was made in the interest of the children, it was also decreed that abandoned children must be brought to the nearest hospital, and if that hospital declared that it had not enough funds to support the foundlings, the royal treasury might be drawn on.

Curzon, p. II.

CHAPTER XXII

RISE OF FACTORY SYSTEM-THE CHILD A CHARGE ON THE STATE-CHILDREN ACTUALLY SLAVES UNDER FACTORY SYSTEM-REFORM OF 1833-OASTLER AGAINST THE CHILD SLAVERY—“JUVENILE LABOUR IN FACTORIES IS A NATIONAL BLESSING"

HE cannibalistic stage has passed and the day of sacrifice has passed-no longer is

TH

the child frankly a convenience nor is its life, as a result of past economic stress, a lightly considered trifle to be tossed into the cauldron of religious ceremony. Philosophy, humanity, civilization, and religion have combined to make the life of the child safe.

With what result?

The general belief that children were not regularly employed until the middle of the last century, when the factory system arose, had led to the equally erroneous belief that it was in the factory where the industrial abuse of children was first practised. In France where there was little industrial use for children in the large centres of population, where in other words children did not pay, the problem of modern humanity was to save infants from exposure and death. In Eng

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land where there was an industrial use for them from early times, and where from the earliest times there are records of their abuse, there was no necessity for measures to protect them from infanticidal tendencies. But it is in England that we must study the ill-treatment of children that was brought about by the desire to make them useful.

The industrial records of the Middle Ages contain but few references' to children, for the adults were busy with their own troubles. One of the first of these notices was an order issued by the famous Richard Whittington, in 1398, and, although it is mixed with other considerations, it shows the human spark. It reads:

"ORDINANCES OF THE HURERS.

"22 Richard II., A.D. 1398. Letter-Book H., fol. cccxviii. (Norman French).

"ON the 20th day of August, in the 22d year, etc., the following Articles of the trade of Hurers were by Richard Whityngtone, Mayor, and the Aldermen, ordered to be entered.

"In the first place, that no one of the said trade shall scour a cappe or hure, or anything pertaining to scouryng, belonging to the said trade, in any open place: but they must do this in their own houses; seeing that some persons in the said

1 L. F. Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages, p. 229.