FOUNDLING HOSPITALS.

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one woman, who is called HIS WIFE ; he afterwards takesas many more women as he can afford to keep, which latterare denominated his little wives. That author ob-serves, that among all the defects of the Chinese in thehigher branches of mathematical learning, for which, by-the-bye, they are remarkable, none can better under-stand the principles of common or shopkeepers arithmeticthan they do. They calculate the expense of rearing andeducating children, and then oppose to the amount, thevalue which such children will bring in the market, (asdomestic slavery is also permitted by their laws.) Uponthese sagacious calculations of profit and loss, they generallyfind that the expense is more to bring up a female than ama//infant; and what further operates against the unfor-tunate females, they will not sell for so much money as theother sex : here are two weighty Chinese reasons why thepoor girls should be barbarously murdered.

In China , positive infanticide, and what is worse, expo-sure, is nearly as general as nativities among the lower sort;the female sex being the chief sufferers! The mid wivesare generally the executioners, having water ready for thepurpose, upon the moment the sex of the infant is dis-covered, the next instant it is plunged into and smotheredin water. This should be regarded as really humane in thepolished Chinese : for there are many children who meetwith a still more horrible fate; for, notwithstanding thismode of private destruction is quite common, yet, to thebest of our recollection, the midw'ives generally demand a.small douceur for this practice; many, therefore, rather thanpay this compliment, will have their infants thrown outupon the dunghill, or into the canals, common in the streetsof China . Of such infants thrown upon land, the dogs,which run wild in large numbers, and also the swine, whichare there plentiful, and also run common about the streets,mangle and devour the little innocents. But, notwithstand-ing all these numerous causes for infant destruction, thebenevolent Frenchmen used to collect children to an averageamount of, we think w'e shall not err, if we say 2000 perannum in the streets of Pekin alone!

Those ages we call barbarous among European andAsiatic nations, have generally either made laws againstinfanticide, or have provided for the protection of childrenexposed. Of most modern European nations, none is morefamous for these provisions than the Russian empire. Inits capital alone, there are many foundling hospitals.Indeed, it has had one of the most famous of its Empresses,