In l798, 11,000,000 francs were assigned toward their support, and it was ordered that two lying-in hospitals should be connected with the foundling house in Paris. But the usefulness of the institution was crippled by a lack of nurses. An imperial decree of Jan. 19, 1811, ordered the establishment of a foundling hospital in each arrondisse-ment of France, to be governed by the following regulations: The children were suckled and weaned in the hospitals, and kept there until the age of six, when they were placed under the charge of peasants and artisans, who received a stipend for their board and training. This stipend was reduced from year to year until the children reached the age of 12, when the able-bodied boys were placed at the disposal of the minister of marine, while for those who were invalids some labor appropriate to their condition was provided in the hospital. They were the property of the state, and those who at the age of 12 had not been taken into the public service were immediately placed under apprenticeship by the administration of the hospital. The expense for nursing and for the outdoor board of the children below the age of 12 was paid by the departments to which they belonged. The expenditure for clothing was paid by the respective hospitals.

The number of foundlings annually received in France has varied in recent years from 25,000 to 30,000. The annual number claimed by and restored to their parents is about 3,000, or about 1 in 9. Previous to 1811 the children were deposited in the hands of an officer of the institution; but the decree passed in that year obliged each arrondissement to establish a hospital of deposit, provided with a turning box. In accordance with that decree 256 hospitals were established provided with such boxes, and 17 without them. But many arrondissements removed the boxes and the hospitals of deposit. It was believed that the great increase of foundlings was due to the use of the boxes, hence their suppression. It was discovered that parents put themselves in collusion with those appointed by the hospital to nurse the children or to supply them with board, and it was ascertained that there were mothers who, having discarded their own offspring by secretly depositing them in the turning boxes, managed to officiate as nurses of the institution.

The present annual average of children admitted into the Paris hospital is about 5,000. The percentage of illegitimate children is about 28. Provision is also made for the reception of children whose parents are sick or in prison.-In Belgium 12 cities have foundling hospitals, and elsewhere the children are provided for in the country under the supervision of hospital authorities. The foundling hospitals of Tour-nay, Namur, Antwerp, Ghent, Mons, and others, have been suspended. The turning boxes were abolished by law in 1834. In the Netherlands the foundling hospitals and the number of foundlings are not given separately in the statistical reports. Germany has numerous institutions for the care and education of deserted children, but no foundling hospitals proper. The latter are considered unfavorable to morality, and the system has been gradually abandoned. The foundlings of Bavaria are placed in the families of farmers, and are under the supervision of the civil magistrate of the district. The Austro-Hungarian empire has 35 foundling hospitals, in which about 120,000 infants are deposited annually, but nearly 90,000 are cared for outside of the institutions. The 35 lying-in hospitals connected with them contain about 1,500 beds, and receive yearly about 20,000 patients.

In Vienna illegitimate children are taken care of in the lying-in hospital, which gives a receipt, stating all particulars, for the deposited child; but unless the mother can prove her poverty, or is willing to serve as a nurse for three months, she must pay from 30 to 100 florins for the admission of her child. There are similar institutions at Prague, Brunn, and Gratz.-Toward the end of the 17th century proposals for a foundling hospital were made in London, and one was established in 1739, chiefly through the efforts and at the expense of Capt. Thomas Coram, whose portrait and statue now adorn the chapel of the institution. Handel the composer presented it with an organ and gave several performances for its benefit. The hospital was opened June 2, 1756, and adapted to maintain and educate 500 children. But the great influx of children, the large mortality among them, and the abuses consequent upon the facility of admission, led to a modification of the institution; in 1760 it was changed to a hospital for poor illegitimate children whose mothers had previously borne a good character.

In 1870 it maintained 504 children, at an expense of £13,775. In 1704 a foundling hospital was instituted in Dublin. In the 30 years preceding 1825 it received 52,150 infants, of whom 14,613 died infants, 25,829 died in the country, where they had been put out to nurse, 730 died in the infirmary after returning from the country, and 322 died grown children; total number of deaths, 41,524, or at the rate of 4 out of 5. In consequence of this great mortality, the hospital was closed March 31, 1835. The infant orphan asylum at Wan-stead, near London, founded by private charity in 1827, wholly maintains and educates abandoned and orphan children from their earliest infancy to the age of 14 or 15 years. It now has 6OD in charge.-In Stockholm, where public prostitution is prohibited, there are 46.01 illegitimate children out of every 100 born, and in the interior of Sweden one out of eight. The Stora Barnhorst hospital of Stockholm, originally established by Gustavus Adolphus for children of military men, is now used as an asylum for infants, who are received without any questions being asked about their parents. Many parents who are fully able to maintain their children send them to it in order to be relieved from the care attending their training and education.