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 FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 349 to officiate as nurses of the institution. The present annual average of children admitted into the Paris hospital is about 5,000. The percentage of illegitimate children is about 28. Provision is also made for the reception of children whose parents are sick or in prison. In Belgium 12 cities have foundling hospitals, and elsewhere the children are provided for in the country under the supervision of hospital authorities. The foundling hospitals of Tour- nay, Namur, Antwerp, Ghent, Mons, and others, have been suspended. The turning boxes were abolished by law in 1834. In the Nether- lands the foundling hospitals and the number of foundlings are not given separately in the statistical reports. Germany has numerous in- stitutions for the care and education of desert- ed children, but no foundling hospitals proper. The latter are considered unfavorable to mo- rality, and the system has been gradually aban- doned. The foundlings of Bavaria are placed in the families of farmers, and are under the supervision of the civil magistrate of the dis- trict. The Austro-Hungarian empire has 35 foundling hospitals, in which about 120,000 in- fants are deposited annually, but nearly 90,000 are cared for outside of the institutions. The 35 lying-in hospitals connected with them con- tain about 1,500 beds, and receive yearly about 20,000 patients. In Vienna illegitimate chil- dren are taken care of in the lying-in hospital, which gives a receipt, stating all particulars, for the deposited child ; but unless the mother can prove her poverty, or is willing to serve as a nurse for three months, she must pay from 30 to 100 florins for the admission of her child. There are similar institutions at Prague, Brtinn, and Gratz. Toward the end of the 17th century proposals for a foundling hospital were made in London, and one was established in 1739, chiefly through the efforts and at the expense of Capt. Thomas Coram, whose portrait and statue now adorn the chapel of the institution. Handel the composer presented it with an or- gan and gave several performances for its bene- fit. The hospital was opened June 2, 1756, and adapted to maintain and educate 500 chil- dren. But the great influx of children, the large mortality among them, and the abuses consequent upon the facility of admission, led to a modification of the institution ; in 1760 it was changed to a hospital for poor illegitimate children whose mothers had previously borne a good character. In 1870 it maintained 504 children, at an expense of 13,775. In 1704 a foundling hospital was instituted in Dublin. In the 30 years preceding 1825 it received 52,150 infants, of whom 14,613 died infants, 25,829 died in the country, where they had been put out to nurse, 730 died in the infirmary after returning from the country, and 322 died grown children; total number of deaths, 41,524, or at the rate of 4 out of 5. In consequence of this great mortality, the hospital was closed March 31, 1835. The infant orphan asylum at Wan- stead, near London, founded by private charity in 1827, wholly maintains and educates aban- doned and orphan children from their earliest infancy to the age of 14 or 15 years. It now has 600 in charge. In Stockholm, where pub- lic prostitution is prohibited, there are 46-01 illegitimate children out of every 100 born, and in the interior of Sweden one out of eight. The Stora Barnhorst hospital of Stockholm, originally established by Gustavus Adolphus for children of military men, is now used as an asylum for infants, who are received without any questions being asked about their parents. Many parents who are fully able to maintain their children send them to it in order to be relieved from the care attending their training and education. There are foundling hospitals in Christiania and other Norwegian cities, and the number of foundlings for the past five years has been more than 9 per cent, of the total number of births. The foundling hospital of Moscow (Vospitatelnoi Dom} was founded by Catharine II. in 1762. It is an immense establishment, which has been enlarged by a member of the Dernidoff family, who contrib- uted liberally to its support. A lying-in hospi- tal is connected with the institution. It has secret wards to which more than 2,000 women have recourse annually. The foundling depart- ment admits yearly about 12,000 children, who are not left at the door, but taken openly into a room, where the infant is at once received without any other question than "Has the child been baptized?" and if so, "By what name ? " The child is then registered, and a number is assigned to it, which it wears around the neck and which is put on its cot, while the bearer obtains a receipt for which he can claim the child up to the age of 10 years. The mother is permitted to nurse the child. The girls are separated from the boys. About 5,000 children are sometimes in the villages in the environs. The inhabitants of a large vil- lage near Moscow are entirely devoted to the bringing up of the foundlings. All children are received, whether foundlings or not, on condi- tion that they are given up to the state. About 50 per cent, of them die before the age of one year, and only one quarter of those brought to the institution reach maturity. The govern- ment has of late years established many of them as farmers and colonists on the crown lands. Many of the best Russian engineers have been educated in the institution. Those who dis- play great abilities are sent to the university. The majority of the girls are employed in manual labor, the proceeds of which go partly to the treasury of the institution, and are partly saved for them to form their marriage portion ; but those of superior ability find opportunities for cultivating it, and may become musicians, actresses, governesses, teachers, &c. All can return to the hospital should they fall into dis- tress in after life. The Vospitatelnoi Dom in St. Petersburg was founded by Catharine II. in 1772, as a branch of that of Moscow, but it now eclipses the parent institution. The small