to the industrious poor. The mother brings
her child properly wrapt up and provided
with linen for the day; attends punctually at
appointed hours to suckle it, and fetches it
before the close of the institution in the evening.
The charge paid by the mothers per
diem for one child is twopence, and threepence
for two children. The nurses are appointed
and directed by the lady managers. The room
is carefully ventilated; and the diet and other
arrangements are under the immediate direction
of regularly appointed medical men and
lady inspectors. In most of these nurseries
there is a mattress in the middle of the chief
apartment, where the children can be laid at
any time with perfect safety. At the present
time there are about twelve of these useful
institutions in operation throughout Paris.
In 1846, when a report on the subject was
drawn up, there existed nine institutions, the
number of children in which averaged from
twenty-five to eighty, at a cost averaging, for
each infant, from sixty to seventy centimes
per diem.

M. Marbeau's experiment has been
imitated in England, and it is to its extension
that we desire to draw especial attention.
Last March, a house was opened in Nassau
Street, Marylebone, for the reception of
infants; and lately a nursery, under the control
of the parochial authorities, has been
established at Kensington. The Nassau Street
nursery contains two large airy rooms. It is
furnished with eight wire-work cradles. All
children admitted must be the offspring of
respectable parents. They must be vaccinated,
and be between the ages of three months and
three years. The charge for daily food and
attendance is threepence per child, and
fourpence for two of the same family. The authors
of the pamphlet entitled "Day Nurseries,"
show very satisfactorily that these charges
are not sufficient to maintain a self-supporting
nursery; but that fivepence per diem,
will suffice for the proper care and feeding of
an infant; A recent meeting of influential
gentlemen at Manchester has elucidated in a
most acceptable manner the subject of 'Day-
Nurseries. The Bishop of Manchester very
pertinently declared, that "it was not merely
the awful per centage—the thirty-eight in
every hundred who died—but the infinitely
worse sixty-two who lived—lived to be trained
to habits of idleness, and to be driven to
habits of dissipation." The Bishop also
supports the views of the authors of "Day
Nurseries" on the point that these nurseries
should not be eleemosynary institutions, but
self-supporting establishments, maintained by
the co-operation of the working classes. This
is a judicious and a wholesome law. According
to the calculation before us, a mother
might send her child to a "Day-Nursery,"
where it would receive every comfort, including
wholesome food and sound medical care, for
the weekly charge of half-a-crown. Under
the present drugging system, mothers usually
pay the washerwomen, to whom they are
obliged to commit their babes throughout the
day, from four to five shillings weekly. On
the score, therefore, of pecuniary economy, no
less than in discharge of that sacred duty
which the parent owes to the helpless being
he has brought into the world, the working
man whose wife is away from, home throughout
the day, is bound to aid, as far as he is
able, in the immediate establishment of
wholesome, well-directed Nurseries.

The Committee of influential townsmen
now formed at Manchester to establish such
Nurseries throughout their great manufacturing
city, can do little if they be not
supported by the workpeople.

It has been urged, in opposition to the
establishment of Day-Nurseries, that such
institutions tend to encourage the
contracting of imprudent marriages or illicit
connexions. This view cannot be supported
by any evidence, nor be proved by the most
tortuous logic; on the other hand, experience
demonstrates that the destruction of infant
life has the effect of increasing population,
by lightening the probable obligations of
marriage. Another objection raised by M.
Marbeau's opponents is, that these Nurseries
will inevitably relax the strength of domestic
affections. This plea is so groundless that it
is wonderful to find any voices raised in its
support. In the first place, the proposed
Day-Nurseries are not intended to be receptacles
for the children of mothers who are able to
take care of their own progeny. They are not
intended to foster a system of rearing children,
away from home; no—the object aimed at is
to provide the best and tenderest nursing for
children who are inevitably deprived of the
watchful attendance of a mother. In the
place of an ignorant nurse, redolent of laudanum,
it is proposed to place a skilful attendant
under medical surveillance. Instead of a
squalid apartment, reeking with all kinds of
unwholesome and offensive emissions from the
wash-tub, it is proposed to raise lofty,
well-ventilated rooms; and, lastly, it is proposed
to rock children to sleep in the careful arms
of a nurse, rather than by the influence of
opium and aniseed. To us, these propositions
savour rather of that enlightened care which
we are beginning to feel for every grade of
the human family, than of that carelessness,
in respect of the public morals, which the
narrow-minded and the bigotted would fain
attach to them. The atrocious practices at
present openly pursued towards children,
must justify the promoters of Day-Nurseries,
in the opinion of all thinkers, be they on the
opposition or majority benches of any house
or assembly.

Advertisements of the readiness of certain
Day-Nurseries to receive tenders for the
supply of "tops and bottoms," rattles,
baby-baskets, cradles, and cots, will form a new
feature in the columns of the morning papers;
and it is more than probable that the vicinity