In some cities I have seen a table made to revolve outside the walls of the asylum, and in, so that a child could be placed upon it outside, and on the door-bell being rung the table would be set in motion, and the infant is gently rolled into the house. The mother or friend who brought the child and laid it upon the table would thus be relieved of its charge, and would silently depart, leaving the child, yet utterly unseen and unknown. This system has its advantages, and many attendant evils. But here in Moscow they affect no such mystery about the matter. The hospital receives the infant children of poor and honest parents who are willing to give their babes to the state, and it also takes the offspring of sin and shame who are brought by their mothers or left on the highway and picked up by the police or the wayfarer. A reception-room is always open. A man or woman enters with a babe. No question is asked but these:— “Has the child been baptized?” If yes, “By what name?” If it has not been baptized, that sacrament is at once administered, and the name given is registered opposite a number, which is hereafter worn as a sign around its neck, and this number is handed to the person who brings the child. This number entitles the bearer to come back any time within ten years and claim the child. The nurses are mothers who have left their own children in the country, and come here to get the wages and living in the hospital, which are far better than they enjoy at home. And some of the nurses are the mothers whose children are here, and as they have the number that marks their own, they can easily change about till they get the care of the babe they seek to watch, without its ever being known to be theirs. Nothing is now wanting that medical skill and good nursing can supply to preserve the lives of these orphans. We go from ward to ward, admiring the cleanliness, order, and comfort on every side. The babes are bathed in copper tubs, convenient in shape, and lined with thick flannel. They are not laid on the hard knees or sharp hoops of unfeeling nurses to be dressed, but they are suffered to lie on pillows of down while this operation is performed. After four weeks of such tender care, and when the child may be supposed to have gained some strength, they are sent with their nurses into the country. They are, however, exposed to such a climate, and the fare of the peasantry is so coarse, that it takes a tough child to weather the first year of life, and at least one-half of them die before they are twelve months old. Half of the remainder who survive the year fall by the way before they grow up; and so it comes to pass that only one quarter, twenty-five out of a hundred, of these children of the state live to be men and women. This is a small proportion, and it is quite likely that full as many of them would have lived to grow up, if there had been no hospital to care for them.