To the above remarks it might truthfully be added, that not only is the fœtus endangered by the attempt at abortion, and the mother's health, but that the stamp of disease thus impressed is very apt to be perceived upon any children she may subsequently bear. Not only do women become sterile in consequence of a miscarriage, and then, longing for offspring, find themselves permanently incapacitated for conception, but, in other cases, impregnation, or rather the attachment of the ovum to the uterus, being but imperfectly effected, or the mother's system being so insidiously undermined, the children that are subsequently brought forth are unhealthy, deformed, or diseased. This matter of conception and gestation, after a miscarriage, has of late been made the subject of special study, and there is little doubt that from this, as the primal origin, arises much of the nervous, mental, and organic derangement and deficiency that, occurring in children, cuts short or embitters their lives. It may be alleged by those who, sceptical or not sceptical as to these conclusions, have reason, nevertheless, to desire to throw discredit upon them, that the weekly or annual bills of mortality, the mortuary statistics, do not show such direct influence from the crime of abortion as I have claimed exists. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that in these cases there is always present every reason for concealment. In the earlier months of pregnancy it is very difficult to prove, in the living subject, that pregnancy has occurred. Such a conclusion being arrived at, before the sound of the fœtal heart can be heard, for this is the only sign that is positively certain, by merely circumstantial and probable evidence, which becomes of weight only as it is accumulated and found corroborative. In the dead subject, the victim of an abortion in the earlier months, the case is often equally obscure, or at least doubtful, unless the product of conception has not yet escaped, or, having been thrown off, has been detected or preserved. When found, it of course proves pregnancy, whether the parent be living or dead; that is, in the former instance, if its discharge can be traced directly to the woman in question, and to no other, and correlative circumstances may show that an abortion has occurred; but this may have been accidental and guiltless. Where the act has been committed by an accomplice, the proofs of such commission and of the intent, though this is generally implied by the act itself, are by no means always forthcoming. Where the abortion has been induced by the woman herself, as is now so frequently the case, certainty upon the point becomes far more difficult. The only positive evidence by which to judge of the real frequency of the crime is _confession_, and it is from the confessions of many hundreds of women, in all classes of society, married and unmarried, rich and poor, otherwise good, bad, or