View report page

17
of death in such cases. The inquiry in these cases
involves a knowledge of all the external symptoms
of death by violence, and the competence to make
post-mortem examinations, and the application of the
tests for the presence of poison in suspected cases.
There is the more reason for placing this inquiry in the
hands of such an officer, as the law does not require
that the Coroner should be a medical man.
The importance of this subject will, I hope, be
seen in relation to the large increase in the kind of
death to which I allude. Some public movement is,
I feel, required, to arrest the apparent indifference
which exists amongst our population to the
destruction of infant life. The increase of infant
mortality, under the head of " Suffocation," is not
confined to our parish, but embraces the whole
Metropolis. In 1858, there were 230 deaths from
suffocation, and in 1859, there were 288 deaths
from the same cause. As a proof that there is
something more than an increasing indifference to
the sanctity of human infant life, I would refer to
the fact, that recently no less than eight children
were found murdered in one week, in various parts
of London". We sometimes refer with horror to
the permission of the crime of infanticide amongst
the thickly populated cities of other parts of the
world ; but if something more is not done to arrest
the tendency to the same crime amongst ourselves,
our turn will come to excite the indignation of the
world,—but with this difference, that out guilt will
* Weekly Return of Births and Deaths in London,—May 26tb, 1860.
B