tion and the artificial prevention of conception, crime
plays its _role_. In France, the murder of children and their exposure
is perceptibly on the increase, both promoted by the provision of the
French civil code that forbids all inquiry after the paternity of the
child. Section 340 of the _Code Civil_ decrees: "_La recherche de la
paternite est interdite_;" on the other hand, Section 314 provides: "_La
recherche de la maternite est admise_." To inquire after the paternity
of a child is forbidden, but is allowed after its maternity,--a law that
glaringly brings out the injustice contemplated towards the seduced
woman. The men of France are free to seduce as many women and girls as
they are able to; they are free from all responsibility; they owe no
support to the child. These provisions were instituted under the pretext
that the female sex should be frightened against seducing the men. As
you see, everywhere it is the weak man, this limb of the stronger sex,
who is seduced, but never seduces. The result of Section 340 of the
_Code Civil_ was Section 312, which provides: "_L'enfant concu pendant
le marriage a pour pere le mari._"[83] Inquiry after the paternity being
forbidden, it is logical that the husband, crowned with horns, rest
content with having the child, that his wife received from another,
considered his own. Inconsistency, at any rate, can not be charged to
the French capitalist class. All attempts to amend Section 340 have so
far failed. Lately, February, 1895, the Socialist deputies in the French
Chamber of Deputies presented a bill intended to put an end to the
disfranchised position of the seduced or betrayed woman. Whether the
attempt will be crowned with success is doubtful.

On the other hand, the French capitalist class--sensible of the cruelty
it committed in so framing the law as to make it impossible for the
deceived woman to turn for support to the father of her child--sought to
make up for its sins by establishing foundling asylums. According to our
famous "morals," there is no paternal feeling towards the illegitimate
child; that exists only for "legitimate heirs." Through the foundlings'
asylums the mother also is taken from the new-born child. According to
the French fiction, foundlings are orphans. In this way, the French
capitalist class has its illegitimate children brought up, _at the
expense of the State_, as "children of the fatherland." A charming
arrangement. In Germany, things bid fa