FOUNDLING HOSPITALS.

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not be easily removed, or occasion any inconvenience inwearing. By these means, information may be procuredthere at any period respecting the fate of children.

When human morals first experienced improvement,under the mild influence of Christianity , its disciples com-plained loudly of the cruelty of the Romans. The earliestChristian Emperors, however, did not, as we are informed,forbid it as a crime. Though Constantine called exposurea kind of murder, and very wisely exerted himself to removethe cause of it. By an edict, issued anno 331, he endea-voured to deter parents from it, as he thereby removed allhope of their being able to recover or reclaim exposed chil-dren, even should the parents make payment of the moneyexpended in their bringing up. Notwithstanding this edict,or order, it did not remove the cause, as we discover fromthe writings of two authors in his reign, Lactantius andJulius Firmicus ; the first describes it as a remnant of bar-barity, and the latter, being a writer on judicial astrology,furnishes rules for casting the nativities of such children.i The exposure of children was entirely prohibited by Valen-tinian, Valens, and Gratian, towards the close of the fourthcentury.

It must be mentioned, to the honour of many of the1 ancient states, that in such places the care of governmentI was directed at an early period, to exposed children; not- only were the means pursued in Greece and Rome to encou-; rage the reception and education of exposed children, byassigning them as properly to those who took them undertheir protection, but it was also made a law, that foundlingswho were not received by private persons, should be edu-cated at the public expense. At Thebes , for instance, as■ above noticed, to prevent child murder and exposure, it| was ordained that parents, who could not afford to bring upt their children, should carry their new-born babes to govern-S ment, who committed them into the hands of those who| engaged to take the best care of them for the least money.The only difference between the Theban customs andmodern manners is, that the Theban children were slaves forlife, whereas ours are free; or the manners of both were thesame in other respects. The humane decrees of the Em-peror Constantine merit particular attention in this place;the first for Italy , in 315; and second, for Africa, in 322.i The governments in those countries were directed to preventthe murder, sale, or pawning of children, by supplying theparents with money to bring them up; which money was tobe furnished by the public treasury or magazines, or from