The Local Authority may fix the number of infants under the age of seven years which may be kept in any dwelling, and it is an offence to keep more. Provision is also made for the removal of an infant from overcrowded, dangerous, or insanitary premises, or from the custody of a person unfit to take charge of the child; and an application may be made by a visitor to a magistrate for a removal order enforceable by the visitor or a constable. Should the infant die, notice of the fact must be given by the person with whom it is farmed out to the Procurator-fiscal of the district, if in Scotland, and, if in England, to the Coroner of the district, within twenty-four hours. He shall hold an inquest unless a certificate by a medical practitioner specifying the cause of death shall be forwarded. Failure to give such notice is punishable under the Act.
A person nursing an infant for reward shall have no interest in the life of the child for the purposes of life assurance. It is not permissible for such a person or insurance company to insure the life of such a child. To do so renders both
the person and the insurance company liable to prosecution.
Any person knowingly or wilfully making any false statement in any notice required to be given under the Act commits an offence under the Act.
Imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or a fine not exceeding £25, may be imposed upon any person found guilty upon summary conviction of an offence against Part I of the Children Act, 1908; in addition the court may order the removal of the infant to a place of safety. All fines are payable to the Local Authority for the purposes of the Act.
Legal guardians of an infant, as well as institutions established for the protection and care of infants, are exempted from the provisions of Part I of the Children Act, 1908.
Bab´ylon, the capital of Babylonia, on the left of the Euphrates, one of the largest and most splendid cities of the ancient world, now a scene of ruins, and earth-mounds containing them. Babylon was a royal city sixteen hundred years before the Christian era; but the old city was almost entirely destroyed in 683 B.C. A new city was built by Nebuchadnezzar nearly a century later. This was in the form of a square, each side 15 miles long, with walls of such immense height and thickness as to constitute one of the wonders of the world. It contained splendid edifices, large gardens and pleasure-grounds, especially the 'hanging-gardens', a sort of lofty terraced structure supporting earth enough for trees to grow, and the celebrated Tower of Babel or Temple of Belus, rising by stages to the height of 625 feet. (See Babel, Tower of.) After the city was taken by Cyrus in 538 B.C., and Babylonia made a Persian province, it began to decline, and had suffered severely by the time of Alexander the Great. He intended to restore it, but was prevented by his death, which took place here in 323 B.C., from which time its decay was rapid. Interesting discoveries have been made on its site, more especially of numerous and valuable inscriptions in the cuneiform or arrow-head character. The modern town of Hillah is believed to represent the ancient city, and the plain here for miles round is studded with vast mounds of earth and brick and imposing ruins. The greatest mound is Birs Nimrud, about 6 miles from Hillah. It rises nearly 200 feet, is crowned by a ruined tower, and is commonly believed to be the remains of the ancient Temple of Belus. Another great ruin-mound, called Mujellibeh, has also been assigned as its site.
Babylonia and Assyria. These ancient seats of Mesopotamian civilization lay across the western Asian trade-routes, Babylonia being in the south and Assyria in the north. The area, in which they flourished is embraced by the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and extends from the head of the Persian Gulf to the frontiers of Armenia and Northern Syria, is bordered on the east by Persia and on the west by the Syro-Arabian desert. 'Mesopotamia' is a term borrowed by the ancient Greeks from the Semites, and was first applied to the north-western region. There was a Roman province of that name. The northern area of the Tigro-Euphrates valley is partly mountainous and partly steppe land, with wide stretches of elevated grazing-lands and fertile districts on the banks of rivers. Assyria, derived from A-usar ('the river-bank region'), had origin in north-eastern Mesopotamia. Its most ancient capital, Asshur (modern Kal'at Sherkat), was situated on the western bank of the River Tigris, between the tributaries the Upper Zab and the Lower Zab. Nineveh, the last capital of all, lay farther north on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and right opposite modern Mosul. The Assyrians called themselves Asshurai, and their national god was Ashur (earlier Ashir), written A-Shur, but confused in time with Ash-Shur, the name of the capital. The southern area of Mesopotamia, below Bagdad, where the Tigris and Euphrates come within 35 miles of one another, is a flat alluvial plain. Babylonia proper is that fish-shaped region between the rivers, which broadens out to about 100 miles and gradually narrows to the point at Kurnah where the rivers meet and form the Shatt-el-Arab. From Kurnah to the head of the Persian Gulf is the ancient area of Chaldea, which means 'Sea-land'. The inhabitants called themselves Kaldu (Sea-landers) and were known to the Hebrews as the Kasdim, and to the Greeks as the Chaldaioi. Babylonia, and the rest of the alluvial plain, is the 'gift' of the rivers which rise in flood each year when the snow melts on the Armenian mountains. Both the Tigris and the Euphrates bring down enormous quantities of sediment—indeed five times as much as does the Egyptian Nile—and they have withal more destructive tendencies. The accumulating silt tends to divert the flow of the rivers in the south, and a process of land-making which began at the close of the Ice Age is still in progress, thrusting back the head of the Persian Gulf. At one time the Tigris and Euphrates entered the gulf by separate mouths, and Chaldea was then a narrow fringe of steppe land, plain, and marshes. The River Tigris is about 1146 miles long, and begins to rise early in March, reaching its height in May, and subsiding before the end of June. The Euphrates is a slower river, about 1780 miles in length. It begins to rise a fortnight later than the Tigris, is longer in flood, and does not reach its lowest level until September. As there is a drop of only
120 feet between Bagdad and the sea, a distance, as the crow flies, of about 300 miles, the ancient Babylonians did their utmost to conserve the water which came down in such abundance and was rapidly drained away, after doing much damage. Near Bagdad the Tigris is on a higher level than the Euphrates, and could be run into it through a canal; farther south the Euphrates, being on the higher level, could be run by canal into the Tigris. The ancient engineers cut these and other canals; indeed, they covered the whole valley with a network of them. To store the Euphrates water for the season of drought and great heat, they formed canals which carried the roaring flood into two depressions in the western desert between the modern towns of Kerbela and Rama˙di. These depressions are utilized for the British irrigation scheme. The Babylonians did their utmost to control the Tigris by erecting earthen dams so as to hold up as much of the water as possible. Earthen dykes were also erected to raise its banks. The right bank protected the farms from disastrous flooding. These ancient irrigation works made Babylonia the greatest grain-yielding area in the ancient world. Its vast surplus of food stimulated trade and brought Babylonia immense wealth, while its strategic situation made it very powerful. Its cultural influence flowed along the trade routes, eastward across Persia and the Iranian plateau, northward through Assyria to Armenia (ancient Urartu) and beyond, and north-westward along the Euphrates banks into Syria and Palestine, and into Asia Minor, the land of the Hittites, and then along the highway to Europe, called later by the Persians 'the royal road'. The road to Egypt ran southward from North Syria through Palestine, skirting the maritime valley by 'the way of the Philistines'. The merchants of many nations met in the city of Babylon, the London of the ancient western Asian world, and in the trading centres of North Syria, including Carchemish.
