Paris: With Pen and Pencil: Its People and Literature, Its Life and BusinessBartlett, D. W. (David W.)
History
Paris: With Pen and Pencil: Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business
Bartlett, D. W. (David W.)
Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- Social life and customs
be within the range of possibility.
The hospital for orphans is in the same building, and is well arranged.
The orphan department and the foundling hospital, are under the special
care of the sisters of charity.
There is, perhaps, no more strange sight in all Paris, than the
assemblage of babies in the apartments of the Foundling Hospital. To see
them ranged around the walls of the rooms in cradles, attended by the
nurses, will excite a smile, and yet, when we reflect how sad is the lot
of these innocents, the smile will vanish. They are deprived of that to
which, by virtue of existence, every human being is entitled--a home,
and the affectionate care of father and mother. To be entirely shut out
from all these blessings, really makes existence a curse, and it were
better if these thousands had never been born.
On visiting the hospital, I rang a bell and was admitted by a polite
porter, and a female attendant conducted us through the various
apartments. I was at once struck with the exceeding tidiness of
everything. The floors were of polished oak, and the walls of plaster
polished like glass. One of the first rooms we were shown into contained
forty or fifty babies, ranged in rows along the wall. The cradles were
covered with white drapery, and their appearance was very neat. Four
long rows stretched across the apartment, and in the center there was a
fire, round which the nurses were gathered, attending to the wants of
the hungry and complaining babies. But if the sight of the cradles was
pleasant, the noise which greeted my ear was far otherwise. At least
twenty-five of the children were crying all at once, and _one_ is as
much as I can usually endure, and not that for any length of time. Among
the children round the fire, there was one which was very beautiful. It
had black hair and eyes, and when we stopped before it, it laughed and
crowed at a great rate. I could not help wondering that any human mother
could have abandoned so beautiful a babe--one that would have been "a
well-spring of pleasure" in many a home.
I was next shown into the apartment for children afflicted with diseases
of the eye. The room was carefully shaded, and the cradles were covered
with blue or green cloth. There was quite a number of children in this
department, and all of them seemed to be well cared for. I was shown
into another apartment devoted entirely to the sick children, and its
appointments were excellent. It was wholesome and clean, the air was
pure as that of the country, and the rooms were high and commodious.
Other apartments are shown to the visitor which contain the linen used
in the hospital, and where all kinds of work are performed, and
finally, the pretty little chapel which I have alluded to before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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