To the licentiousness of the people, more than to their extreme poverty, may be attributed the number of children which are continually exposed to perish in the street. Almost every morning, at the door of one of the churches, and often at more than one, a new-born infant is found. There is an hospital, where they are received, but those who find them, are (if so disposed,) at liberty to keep them. The unfortunate little beings who happen to fall into the hands of the lower classes of the people, increase, during their childhood, the throng of beggars, and augment, as they grow up, the number of thieves.
The heart recoils at the barbarity of a mother who can thus abandon her child; but the custom, here, as in China, is sanctioned by habit, and excites no horror!
LETTER XVIII.
St. Jago de Cuba.
We have received no news from the Cape, my dear friend, but it is generally expected that it will be evacuated, as several parts of the island have been already.
This place is full of the inhabitants of that unfortunate country, and the story of every family would offer an interesting and pathetic subject to the pen of the novelist.
All have been enveloped in the same terrible fate, but with different circumstances; all have suffered, but the sufferings of each individual derive their hue from the disposition of his mind.