_Infanticide._--By infanticide we understand the deliberate killing of an illegitimate child by its mother during or immediately after birth. For the following reasons, it is necessary that this offence should not be punished with extreme severity: (_a_) in the act of parturition the mother’s physical and mental equilibrium is disturbed, so that her condition must be regarded as one of diminished responsibility; (_b_) in the act of parturition the unmarried mother is influenced by the dread of disgrace, and by fears as to the child’s future, in ways from which the married mother is free; (_c_) neither the secret and indiscriminate reception of illegitimate children into foundling hospitals, nor the most severe punishments, suffice to prevent the commission of this crime. (In France, for example, infanticide is punished with the greatest possible severity, but this does not prevent the commission of the offence. For, in the first place, since in France inquiry into paternity is forbidden, during parturition the fears of the unmarried mother as to the future of the child are exceptionally distressing. In the second place, since the jury know that the offence will be punished with draconian severity, they prefer to return a verdict of Not Guilty.) We do not find, in every modern State, such an attitude towards infanticide. There are certain countries in which infanticide is even more severely punished than the murder of an adult. In the country, infanticide is comparatively commoner than in towns, this difference being connected with the fact that in the country districts there are no foundling hospitals, and with the fact that in the country criminal abortion is less frequently practised than in the towns.