I was present in one of the rooms of the Foundling Hospital while a stout red faced matron was engaged in washing one of these dear little babes of misfortune, and it was indeed an affecting spectacle, to hear the little motherless waif cry and watch its infantile kickings and splurgings in the wash tub.
WASHING THE WAIF.
Even when application is made by mothers for the return of their child, it is frequently refused; when it is apprenticed, and no intercourse is permitted between them, unless master and mistress, as well as parent and child, approve of it; nor when it has attained maturity, unless the child as well as the mother demand it.
Thus a woman, who was married from the hospital, and had borne seven children, once requested to know her parents, on the ground that "there was money belonging to her," and her application was refused. But in November of the same year the name of a certain Foundling was revealed upon the application of a solicitor, and his setting forth that money had been invested for its use by the dead mother; the governors granting this request upon the ground that the mother herself had disclosed the secret, which they were otherwise bound to keep inviolable. Again, in 1833, a Foundling, seventy-six years of age, was permitted, for certain good reasons, to become acquainted with his own name, though, as one may imagine, not with his parent. It is a wise child in the Foundling who even knows its own mother.
Sometimes notes are found attached to the infant's garments, beseeching the nurse to tell the mother her name and residence, that the latter may visit her child during its stay in the country; and they have been even known to follow the van on foot which conveys their little one to its new home. They will also attend the baptism in the chapel, in the hope of hearing the name conferred upon the infant; for, if they succeed in identifying the child during its stay at nurse, they can always preserve the identification during its subsequent abode in the hospital, since the children appear in chapel twice on Sunday, and dine in public on that day, which gives opportunities of seeing them from time to time, and preserving the recollection of their features.
In these attempts at discovery, mistakes, however, are often committed, and attention lavished on the wrong child; instances have even occurred of mothers coming in mourning attire to the hospital to return thanks for the kindness bestowed upon their deceased offspring, only to be informed that they are alive and well.
It is stated that children who are discovered by the mother are spoiled by indulgence—and I can imagine that efforts to make up for the past would be lavish enough in such cases—and rarely turn out well.
HOW THEY DINE.