tion, "illam
calamitatum humanarum officinam--illud infantum spoliarium!"--"that
workshop of human misfortunes--those shambles of infants!"

On the day that Germanicus died, says Suetonius (in Calig., n. 5),
"Subversae Deam arae, partus conjugum expositi," parents exposed their
new-born babes.

The early Christian preachers and writers were unceasing in their
denunciations of the practice.

Quintilian (Decl. 306, vol vi., p. 236) draws a most moving picture of
the fate of these unhappy children left in the Forum: "Rarum est ut
expositi vivant! Yos ponite ante oculos puerum statim neglectum * * *
inter feras et volucres."

"It is rare that the exposed survive!" he says.

Tertullian, in an eloquent passage (Apol., c. 9), asks: "Quot vultis ex
his circumstantibus et in christianum sanguinem hiantibus * * * apud
conscientias pulsem, qui natos sibi liberos enecent?"

"How many, do you suppose, of those standing about and panting for the
blood of Christians, if I should put it to them before their very
conscience, would deny that they killed their own children?"

Lactantius, who was the tutor of the son of Constantine, in a book
dedicated to Constantine, protests: "It is impossible to grant that one
has the right to strangle one's new-born children"; and speaks of
exposition as exposing one's own blood--"ad servitutem vel ad
lupanar"--"for slavery or the brothel." "It is a crime as execrable to
expose a child as to kill him."

So fearfully did the numbers increase, under the Roman Empire, of these
unfortunate children, that the spark of charity, which is never utterly
extinguished in the human breast, began to kindle. Pliny the Younger is
said to have appropriated a sum equivalent to $52,000 (see Epist., v.,
7), to found an asylum for fathers unable to support their children.

THE FIRST CHILDREN'S ASYLUM.

Probably the first society or asylum in history for poor children was
the foundation established by the Emperor Trajan (about A. D. 110) for
destitute and abandoned children. The property thus established in
perpetuity, with real estate and money at interest (at five per cent.),
was equivalent in value to $920,000, and supported some five thousand
children of both sexes. Singularly enough, there seems to have been only
one illegitimate child to one hundred and fifty legitimate in these
institutions.

The Antonines, as might be expected, did not neglect this charity; but
both Antoninus Pius