Infanticide in England, 1830s
June 28, 2023
by William P. Meyers

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yet the population grew

"Infanticide is practiced as extensively and legally in England as it is on the banks of the Ganges; a circumstance which apparently has not engaged the attention of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. But the vital principle is an impulse from an immortal artist, and sometimes baffles, even in its tenderest phasis, the machinations of society for its extinction. There are infants that will defy even starvation and poison, unnatural mothers and demon nurses. Such was the nameless one that would not die. So at two years of age, his [factory worker] mother being lost sight of, and the weekly payment having ceased, he was sent out into the street to play, in order to be run over. Even this expedient failed. The youngest and the feeblest of the band of victims, Juggernaut spared him to Moloch. All of his companions were disposed of. Three months play in the streets got rid of this tender company, — shoeless, half-naked, and uncombed, — whose age varied from two to five years. Some were crushed, some were lost, some caught cold and fevers, crept back to their garret or their cellars, were dosed with Godfrey's cordial, and died in piece. The nameless one would not disappear. He always got out of the way of the carts and horses, and never lost his own. They gave him no food: he foraged for himself, and shared with the dogs the garbage of the streets."
—Sybil, or the Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli, 1845

No particular comment, just a pitch that, for many, reading Sybil will give great insight into where our current society came from, including the nature of the Industrial Revolution, class politics, and conserative v. liberal rationalizations of political self-interest.