file, and in self-defence the sisters were forced to take the cradle in. Now the mother must bringher child inside and put it in the crib where she is seen by the sister on guard. No effort is madeto question her, or discover the child's antecedents, but she is asked to stay and nurse her ownand another baby. If she refuses, she is allowed to depart unhindered. If willing, she enters atonce into the great family of the good Sister who in twenty-one years has gathered as manythousand homeless babies into her fold. One was brought in when I was last in the asylum, in themiddle of July, that received in its crib the number 20715. The deathrate is of course lowered agood deal where exposure of the child is prevented. Among the eleven hundred infants in theasylum it was something over nineteen per cent last year, but among those actually received inthe twelve month nearer twice that figure. Even the nineteen per cent, remarkably low for aFoundling Asylum, was equal to the startling death-rate of Gotham Court in the cholera scourge.Four hundred and sixty mothers, who could not or would not keep their own babies, didvoluntary penance for their sin in the asylum last year by nursing a strange waif besides theirown until both should be strong enough to take their chances in life's battle. An even largernumber than the eleven hundred were "pay babies," put out to be nursed by "mothers" outside theasylum. The money thus earned pays the rent of hundreds of poor families. It is no trifle, quitehalf of the quarter of a million dollars contributed annually by the city for the support of theasylum. The procession of these nursemothers, when they come to the asylum on the firstWednesday of each month to receive their pay and have the babies inspected by the sisters, isone of the sights of the city. The nurses, who are under strict supervision, grow to love their littlecharges and part from them with tears when, at the age of four or five, they are sent to Westernhomes to be adopted. The sisters carefully encourage the home-feeling in the child as theirstrongest ally in seeking its mental and moral elevation, and the toddlers depart happy to jointheir "papas and mammas" in the far-away, unknown home.An infinitely more fiendish, if to surface appearances less deliberate, plan of child-murder than desertion has flourished in New York for years under the title of baby farming. Thename, put into plain English, means starving babies to death. The law has fought this mostheinous of crimes by compelling the registry of all baby-farms. As well might it require allpersons intending murder to register their purpose with time and place of the deed under thepenalty of exemplary fines. Murderers do not hang out a shingle. "Baby-farms," said once Mr.
