appy mothers dying, and on the last occasion the child was not to be
found, although born alive--and nothing done to either the doctor or his
lady!"

A gentleman of one of the smaller towns of Connecticut writes to the
_Independent_ as follows: "I have just read, with great interest, your
editorial on the 'Murder of Helplessness.' The paper will go into
hundreds of families where the crime is practised, to bear witness
against it; for, thank God, it is fashionable to take the _Independent_.
For more than a year it has been on my mind to write to you upon this
question. You will have the thanks of every well-wisher of the human
race. But you make a great mistake when you speak of the crime of
foeticide as being confined to the large cities. It prevails all over
the country. I dare not tell you what I know--and the information has
been given me unsolicited--in reference to this horrid practice in the
land. I do not believe there is a village in the New England States but
this crime is practised more or less. There are men who make it their
business, with medicine and instruments, to carry on this slaughter. And
even M.D.'s (physicians) in good and regular standing in the church have
practised it. Men are making here, in this highly moral State, $3,000
and $4,000 a year in the small towns alone, at this business. Their
patients are from the highly religious and fashionable to the low and
vicious. Their scale of charges is according to the cupidity and size of
purse of the victims. Delicate females go, in the dead of night, dressed
in masculine attire, to avoid detection, to obtain the means to hide
their shame. The cause of the evil lies in 'lust, which is as near to
the murder as fire to smoke.' The demoralization of the people at large,
in the practice of licentiousness, furnishes a topic of the greatest
anxiety to the philanthropist. When American women lose their shame, the
race is lost--church-membership is no bar. The continence of man and the
chastity of woman is the only hope."

Trustworthy physicians assure us there are not less than sixty ghouls
(gules) in New York City, who grow rich by killing infants. We have
seen the number stated at six times sixty. Those who have passed
through Fifth Avenue, New York, must have noticed a magnificent
dwelling, or rather palace, in the neighborhood of the Central Park. It
was built by a certain doctress who has acquired her wealth by the
murder of helpless innocents.

The