The decision as to recent delivery will, to a great extent, rest on the condition of the mother, and the apparent age of the child found dead. The discovery of the body of the child is not necessary to conviction, but the medical evidence as to the signs of respiration, of course, depends on the body being found and examined. In most cases of alleged infanticide tried in England, juries appear more inclined to fall back on the minor offence--_concealment of birth_--than to convict of the capital offence; and this appears to be the only alternative if the body cannot be found, for, as we have just said, in law every child is held to be born dead. It must of course be shown that the woman has been recently delivered. In case of failure to prove the murder of the child, the Act (24 and 25 Vict. c. 100, sec. 60) enacts that “if any woman shall be delivered of a child, every person who shall, by any secret disposition of the dead body of the said child, whether such child died before, at, or after its birth, endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.” The mere avowal of the birth is not sufficient to convict her; she must be proved to have done some act of disposal of the body after the child was dead (R. _v._ Turner, 8 C. & P. 755). In Scotland, _concealment of pregnancy_ is a statutory crime, chargeable when the child born is found dead or is not found at all, and there is no proof of its having been murdered. Pregnancy, up to a period when a child might be born alive, must be proved, and the words “during the whole period of her pregnancy” do not imply that the pregnancy must have continued for the full period of nine months. All that is necessary is that there should be such proof of duration of pregnancy as made a living birth possible. If the accused can bring forward a witness to whom she communicated her pregnancy, or called for assistance at the birth, or (it is believed) can prove that the child was born dead, she is entitled to an acquittal.