Why in the world do Marvin Olasky and
Gertrude Himmelfarb consider the Victorians a model for good
treatment
of the poor?
Their books, "Tragedy of American Compassion", by Marvin Olasky and
"Poverty and Compassion" by Gertrude Himmelfarb, discuss virtues that
the Victorians apparently had, that I
find simply non existent in real history. In promoting the Victorians
as a model for fighting poverty they are making the erroneous
assumption that the Victorians were actually good at it. The second
erroneous assumption that they make is the Victorians actually cared
the poor. Once you look at the reality of how bad they were at fighting
poverty, and how unfounded their actual commitment to the task was, the
other argument Himmelfarb and Olasky make, that we should imitate
their example, no longer needs to be debunked.
Don't believe me? Look at the history of baby
farming. Baby farmers were people who would agree to raise the children
of the poor, mostly illegitimate children for fee. Apparently many of
these people deliberately killed or starved the infants, and often they
refused them medical treatment. There was hardly any outrage over the
practice for 40 yr after it was first exposed. Legislators thought it
was more important to protect private business, than do anything about
the slaughter of innocence, that was going on everday. They also didn't
care about what was happening to these babies because most were
illegitimate. Religious institutions and orphanages simply refused to
help unwed mothers, and their babies because they were a moral hazard
to the nations men. Middle class people didn't want their daughters to
help them because they were a bad moral influence. If you were
undeserving poor in their eyes, both you and your baby were simply
supposed to die off. The Victorian religious charities didn't even
intercede with the patronizing charity that Himmelfarb claims we should
return to. They simply abandoned the women and their babies to the
dustbin. If the babies were murdered, starved or denied medical
treatment by enterprising businesses, it was none of their concern.
Victorian morality was hypocritical Talibanism, and a lie. Whenever
anyone preaches to you about the moral superiority and compassion of
people who lived in the Victorian Era please refer them to this
example.
Here is an excerpt from this very good
webpage on the subject "Bastardy
and Baby Farming"
The primary objective of professional baby
farmers was to solicit as many sickly infants or infants under two
months as possible, because life was precarious for them and their
deaths would appear more natural. They would adopt the infants for a
set fee and get rid of them as quickly as possible in order to maximize
their profits. The infants were kept drugged on laudanum, paregoric,
and other poisons, and fed watered down milk laced with lime. They
quickly died of thrush induced by malnutrition and fluid on the brain
due to excessive doses of strong narcotics. The costs of burial was
avoided by wrapping the naked bodies of the dead infants in old
newspapers and damping them in a deserted area, or by throwing them in
the Thames.
Older infants were also lucrative. These
babies, whose young mothers struggled to support and to visit them on a
regular basis, were the ones who suffered a slow and agonizing death.
Babies accepted under these conditions had to be healthy and robust.
They were profitable because they could withstand the most abuse before
they finally succumbed; the longer they lasted, the longer the weekly
fees were paid. To insure maximum profits the farmers would slowly
starve the infants to death. The mothers continued to work night and
day to support their infants believing they were being well cared for
only to watch them slowly waste away.
For older children neglect, abuse, and hunger were a way of life. Little Frederick John Wood, a sickly fourteen-month-old, was farmed out to a Mrs. Savill of 24 Swayton Rd., Bow. His mother visited him every week and believed he was being well cared for. Ten months later he died. The coroner's report revealed that he had died from fluid on the brain, that he had a malformed chest, and that his hip had been broken for some time. When questioned Mrs. Savill admitted that while taking the child upstairs to bed she stumbled and fell on the boy. Though the child cried, she simply put him to bed in an egg crate filled with straw; a crate so narrow he could not turn over in it. At the time of little Frederick's death she had 11 children in her care and 5 had already died. Based on Dr. Atkins' testimony that the boy's death had been of natural causes, the jury had little choice but to return a verdict of death by natural causes, but they were not convinced. They requested that a censure against Mrs. Savill be added to the verdict; the coroner refused. Mrs. Savill went free and the incident was forgotten until the next child in her care died. <34>
The outcome of this inquest was not an exception, it was the rule. There were vigilant laws against mistreatment of animals, even strict licensing laws for cow-keepers, but, until 1872, there were no such laws to govern baby farmers. Anyone could be a baby farmer; there were no regulations to adhere to, no qualifications to be met, no supervision of their facilities or the care their small charges received. They neglected, abused, and slowly starved innocent infants to death with comparative impunity. Adopters were confident that society's momentary outrage over the horror of their trade and the ease with which they circumvented the law would have little effect on Parliament; <35> children had no rights-no legal status-and even the worst abuse was beyond comment and intervention. Reform moved slowly for fear of violating the Victorian ideal of the sanctity of the family, and their abhorrence of government regulation and its involvement in social reform, both of which infringed on the rights of the individual. <36>
Unfortunately these "baby
farms" also existed in America.