It appears from this statement that in the provinces of Antwerp, Brabant, and Hainault, containing a population of 1,514,072 persons, and possessing each two public receptacles for foundlings, the number of foundlings in 1833 was 5,404, or 1 in 278: that in Flandre Orientale and Namur, containing a population of 946,663, and possessing each a single public receptacle, the number of foundlings was 1367, or 1 in 699; and that in Flandre Occidentale, Liége, Limbourg and Luxembourg, containing a population of 1,601,469, but having no such establishment, the number of foundlings was 98, or less than 1 in 16,000. Nor does this difference arise from an increased number of deserted children in those provinces in which foundling hospitals do not exist: on the contrary, the numbers in the second column, comprising both orphans and deserted children, in the four provinces in which no foundling hospitals exist, amount to 910, out of a population of 1,601,469, being 1 in 1649, whereas those in Antwerp, Brabant and Hainault amount to 1356, out of a population of 1,514,077, or 1 in 116; and when it is recollected that the proportion of orphans can scarcely differ in the different provinces, and that in the second column they are mixed with the deserted children, the superiority of the four former provinces over the three latter will be found to be really much greater than it appears. Nor does the difference arise from the prevalence of infanticide. It appears from the statistique des tribunaux de la Belgique, that in the years 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1829, there were in the provinces of Antwerp, Brabant, Flandre Orientale, Hainault, and Namur, containing 2,450,740 inhabitants, and possessing foundling establishments, 13 convictions for infanticide; and in Flandre Occidentale, Liege, Limbourg, and Luxembourg, containing 1,601,469 inhabitants, and no such establishments, only nine convictions, being a proportion slightly inferior. So far, therefore, from foundling hospitals having had a tendency to prevent desertion of children, or infanticide, it appears that their tendency is decidedly to promote the former, without preventing in any degree the latter. The real infanticides, strange as it may sound, are the founders and supporters of foundling hospitals. The average mortality in Europe of children during the first year does not exceed one in five, or 20 per cent. In England and Holland it is less: in Belgium it is 22⁴⁹⁄₁₀₀, per cent. But in the foundling hospitals of Belgium (and their mortality is below the average of such establishments), it is 45 per cent.[15] In the foundling hospital in Brussels it is now 66 per cent., having been from 1812 to 1817, 79 per cent.