He wrote: "An occasional child murder from false shame is saved at a very high price if it can be done only by the sacrifice of some of the best and most useful feelings of the human heart in a great part of the nation".
In Austria foundling hospitals occupied a very prominent place in the general instructions which, by rescript dated 16 April 1781, the emperor Joseph II issued to the charitable endowment commission.
When two months old the child was sent for six or ten years to the houses in the neighborhood of respectable married persons, who had certificates from the police or the poor-law authorities, and who were inspected by the latter and by a special medical officer.
[2] In this country the arrangements for the relief of foundlings and the appropriation of public funds for that purpose very much resemble those in France (see below), and can hardly be usefully described apart from the general questions of local government and poor law administration.
[1] In Louis XIII's France, St. Vincent de Paul rescued, with the help of the Louise de Marillac and other religious ladies, the foundlings of Paris from the horrors of a primitive institution named La Couche (on the rue St Landry), and ultimately obtained from Louis XIV the use of the Bicêtre for their accommodation.
No provision, however, was made outside the great towns; the houses in the cities were overcrowded and administered with laxity; and in 1784 Jacques Necker prophesied that the state would yet be seriously embarrassed by this increasing evil.
It is impossible here to give even a sketch of the long and able controversies which occurred in France on the principles of management of foundling hospitals, the advantages of tours and the system of admission à bureau ouvert, the transfer of orphans from one département to another, the hygiene and service of hospitals and the inspection of nurses, the education and reclamation of the children and the rights of the state in their future.
[1] The Foundling Hospital of London was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1739 for "the maintenance and education of exposed and deserted young children."
The petition of Thomas Coram, who is entitled to the whole credit of the foundation, states as its objects to prevent the frequent murders of poor miserable children at their birth, and to suppress the inhuman custom of exposing newborn infants to perish in the streets.
In 1759 John Watson left funds which were to be applied to the pious and charitable purpose of preventing child murder by the establishment of a hospital for receiving pregnant women and taking care of their children as foundlings.
But by an act of parliament in 1822, which sets forth doubts as to the propriety of the original purpose, the money was given to trustees to erect a hospital for the maintenance and education of destitute children.
[5] As of 1910[update], Italy was very rich in foundling hospitals, pure and simple, orphans and other destitute children being separately provided for.
In Rome one branch of the Santo Spirito in Sassia (so called from the Schola Saxonum built in 728 by King Ina in the Borgo) was, since the time of Pope Sixtus IV, devoted to foundlings.
In Venice the Casa degli Esposti or foundling hospital, founded in 1346, and receiving 450 children annually, was under provincial administration.
The splendid legacy of the last doge, Ludovico Manin, was applied to the support of about 160 children by the Congregazione di Carità acting through thirty parish boards (deputazione fraternate).
But starting in the reign of Catherine II, foundling hospitals were in the hands of the provincial officer of public charity (prykaz obshestvennago pryzrenya).
[2] As of 1910[update], in the United States of America, foundling hospitals, which are chiefly private charities, existed in most of the large cities.