Hundreds of "lost children" bear testimony to the carelessness of
mothers and nurses, who are more intent on other business, when their
charges stray off, to be found afterwards, in out-of-the-way places, by
stray policemen. Quite often a pedestrian will notice, on going along
one of our side streets, a young child, its eyes bubbling over with
tears, and red from irritation and inflammation, who has strayed from
its parents' residence. Sometimes it will have a stick of candy in its
infantile fist, or else an apple, or a slice of bread, butter, and
molasses, to console it in its wanderings. It is very seldom, however,
that these children do not find their way back to their parents, unless
that there is foul play, in such instances where a child may be
kidnapped by people who are childless, or through their agency, for the
purpose of adoption in barren families. The practice of baby-farming
has not as yet attained, in America, the height that it has reached in
England, and therefore the lives of children are not yet so endangered
as they are across the water. It is calculated that at least one
thousand children are missing every year in this city, but they are
nearly all returned before the close of the day on which they are first
missed.