Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/212

184 Those who were the most conspicuous in following this virtuous example, were the royal notaries, and the receivers of the royal audience. These two bodies of civilians, whose profession has been so unjustly attacked by Quevedo, Torres, and other writers, manifested by their conduct, that probity, philosophy, and heroism even, are indifferent characteristics, accessible to all the conditions of society. They obtained the permission of the viceroy, Don Luis De Velasco, to establish a fraternity for the succour of orphans and children abandoned by their parents. The above-mentioned Pecado was declared the principal founder and abbot of this new institution, which took the denomination of the brotherhood of lost and deserted infants and orphans, of Our Lady of Atocha. In 1603 it was patronized by his Catholic Majesty.

A provision was shortly after made in favour of the orphans and abandoned children belonging to the different casts, who were continually exposed in the turning box of the hospital, but whose admission had not before been deemed necessary. It was accordingly determined that the children of colour should be educated separately from the whites; that they should be obliged to perform domestic services until the age of eighteen years; and that they should be given to the respe6lable inhabitants who should apply for them, on the latter contributing a small sum to the funds of the hospital, in aid of the expenditures, and as a recompense for what had been laid out in their board, clothing, and education.

The public was not satisfied with paying a tribute of steril admiration to the progress made by this charitable institution, in the admission and rearing of the poor orphans, and to the excellent conduct of the brotherhood by whom they were tected