Act 1890, the effect of which is explained in the article Insanity. Any

"habitual drunkard" within the above definition may obtain admission to

a "licensed retreat" on a written application to the licensee, stating

the time (the maximum period is two years) that he undertakes to remain

in the retreat. The application must be accompanied by the statutory

declaration of two persons that the applicant is an habitual drunkard,

and its signature must be attested by a justice of the peace who has

satisfied himself as to the fact, and who is required to state that the

applicant understood the nature and effect of his application. Licences

(each of which is subject to a duty and is impressed with a stamp of £5,

and 10s. for every patient above ten in number) are granted for retreats

by the borough council and the town clerk in boroughs, and elsewhere by

the county council and the clerk of the county council. The maximum

period for which a licence may be granted is two years, but licences may

be renewed by the licensing authority on payment of a stamp duty of the

same amount as on the original grant. When an habitual drunkard has once

been committed to a retreat, he must remain in the retreat for the time

that he has fixed in his application, subject to certain statutory

provisions similar to those prescribed by the Lunacy Acts for asylums as

to leave of absence and discharge; and he may be retaken and brought

back to the retreat under a justice's warrant. The term of detention may

be extended on its expiry, or an inebriate may be readmitted, on a fresh

application, without any statutory declaration, and without the

attesting justice being required to satisfy himself that the applicant

is an habitual drunkard. Licensed retreats are subject to inspection by

an Inspector of Retreats appointed by the Home Secretary, to whom he

makes an annual report. The Home Secretary is empowered to make rules

and regulations for the management of retreats, and "regulations and

orders," not inconsistent with such rules, are to be prepared by the

licensee within a month after the granting of his licence, and submitted

to the inspector for approval. The rules now in force are dated as

regards (a) England, 28th Feb. 1902; (b) Scotland, 14th April 1902; (c)

Ireland, 3rd Feb. 1903. There are also statutory provisions, similar to

those of the Lunacy Acts, as to offences--(i.) by licensees failing to

comply with the requirements of the acts; (ii) by persons ill-treating

patients, or helping them to escape, or unlawfully supplying them with

intoxicating liquor; (iii.) by patients refusing to comply with the

rules. The Home Secretary may (i.) authorize the establishment of "State

Inebriate Reformatories," to be paid for out of moneys provided by

parliament; and (ii.) sanction "Certified Inebriates' Reformatories" on

the application of any borough or county council, or any person

whatever, if satisfied concerning the reformatory and the persons

proposing to maintain it. An Inspector of Certified Inebriate

Reformatories has been appointed. Regulations for State Inebriate

Reformatories and for Certified Inebriate Reformatories have been made,

dated as follows: _State Inebriate Reformatories_:--England, 21st of

June 1901, 29th of Dec. 1903, 29th of April 1904; Scotland, 9th of March

1900; Ireland, 16th of March 1899, 16th of April 1901, 10th of Feb.

1904. _Certified Inebriate Reformatories_:--England, Model Regulations,

17th of Dec. 1898; Scotland, Regulations, 14th of Feb. 1899; Ireland,

Model Regulations, 29th of April 1899.

Any person convicted on indictment of an offence punishable with

imprisonment or penal servitude (i.e. of any non-capital felony and of

most misdemeanours), if the court is satisfied from the evidence that

the offence was committed under the influence of drink, or that drink

was a contributing cause of the offence, may, if he admits that he is,

or is found by the jury to be, an habitual drunkard, in addition to or

in substitution for any other sentence, be ordered to be detained in a

state or certified inebriate reformatory, the managers of which are

willing to receive him. Again, any habitual drunkard who is found drunk

in any public place, or who commits any other of a series of similar

offences under various statutes, after having within twelve months been

convicted at least three times of a similar offence, may, on conviction

on indictment, or, if he consent, on summary conviction, be sent for

detention in any certified inebriate reformatory. The expenses of

prosecuting habitual drunkards under the above provisions are payable

out of the local rates upon an order to that effect by the judge of

assize or chairman of quarter-sessions if the prosecution be on

indictment, or by a court of summary jurisdiction if the offence is

dealt with summarily.

AUTHORITIES.--As to the history of legislation on the subject see

Parl. Paper No. 242 of 1872; 1893 C. 7008. See also Wyatt Paine,

_Inebriate Reformatories and Retreats_ (London, 1899); Blackwell,

_Inebriates Acts_, 1879-1898 (London, 1899); Wood Renton, _Lunacy_

(London and Edinburgh, 1896); Kerr, _Inebriety_ (3rd ed., London,

1894). An excellent account of the systems in force in other countries

for the treatment of inebriates will be found in Parl. Pap. (1902),

cd. 1474. (A. W. R.)

INFALLIBILITY (Fr. _infaillibilité_ and _infallibilité_, the latter now

obsolete, Med. Lat. _infallibilitas_, _infallibilis_, formed from

fallor, to make a mistake), the fact or quality of not being liable to

err or fail. The word has thus the general sense of "certainty"; we may,

e.g., speak of a drug as an infallible specific, or of a man's judgment

as infallible. In these cases, however, the "infallibility" connotes

certainty only in so far as anything human can be certain. In the

language of the Christian Church the word "infallibility" is used in a

more absolute sense, as the freedom from ail possibility of error

guaranteed by the direct action of the Spirit of God. This belief in the

infallibility of revelation is involved in the very belief in revelation

itself, and is common to all sections of Christians, who differ mainly

as to the kind and measure of infallibility residing in the human

instruments by which this revelation is interpreted to the world. Some

see the guarantee, or at least the indication, of infallibility in the

consensus of the Church (_quod semper, ubique, et ab omnibus_) expressed

from time to time in general councils; others see it in the special

grace conferred upon St Peter and his successors, the bishops of Rome,

as heads of the Church; others again see it in the inspired Scriptures,

God's Word. This last was the belief of the Protestant Reformers, for

whom the Bible was in matters of doctrine the ultimate court of appeal.

To the translation and interpretation of the Scriptures men might bring

a fallible judgment, but this would be assisted by the direct action of

the Spirit of God in proportion to their faith. As for infallibility,

this was a direct grace of God, given only to the few. "What ever was

perfect under the sun," ask the translators of the Authorized Version

(1611) in their preface, "where apostles and apostolick men, that is,

men endued with an extraordinary measure of God's Spirit, and privileged

with the privilege of infallibility, had not their hand?" In modern

Protestantism, on the other hand, the idea of an infallible authority

whether in the Church or the Bible has tended to disappear, religious

truths being conceived as valuable only as they are apprehended and made

real to the individual mind and soul by the grace of God, not by reason

of any submission to an external authority. (See also INSPIRATION.)

At the present time, then, the idea of infallibility in religious

matters is most commonly associated with the claim of the Roman Catholic

Church, and more especially of the pope personally as head of that

Church, to possess the privilege of infallibility, and it is with the

meaning and limits of this claim that the present article deals.

The substance of the claim to infallibility made by the Roman Catholic

Church is that the Church and the pope cannot err when solemnly

enunciating, as binding on all the faithful, a decision on a question of

faith or morals. The infallibility of the Church, thus limited, is a

necessary outcome of the fundamental conception of the Catholic Church

and its mission. Every society of men must have a supreme authority,

whether individual or collective, empowered to give a final decision in

the controversies which concern it. A community whose mission it is to

teach religious truth, which involves on the part of its members the

obligation of belief in this truth, must, if it is not to fail of its

object, possess an authority capable of maintaining the faith in its

purity, and consequently capable of keeping it free from and condemning

errors. To perform this function without fear of error, this authority

must be infallible in its own sphere. The Christian Church has expressly

claimed this infallibility for its formal dogmatic teaching. In the very

earliest centuries we find the episcopate, united in council, drawing up

symbols of faith, which every believer was bound to accept under pain of

exclusion, condemning heresies, and casting out heretics. From Nicaea

and Chalcedon to Florence and Trent, and to the present day, the Church

has excluded from her communion all those who do not profess her own

faith, i.e. all the religious truths which she represents and imposes as

obligatory. This is infallibility put into practice by definite acts.

The infallibility of the pope was not defined until 1870 at the Vatican

Council; this definition does not constitute, strictly speaking, a

dogmatic innovation, as if the pope had not hitherto enjoyed this

privilege, or as if the Church, as a whole, had admitted the contrary;

it is the newly formulated definition of a dogma which, like all those

defined by the Councils, continued to grow into an ever more definite

form, ripening, as it were, in the always living community of the

Church. The exact formula for the papal infallibility is given by the

Vatican Council in the following terms (Constit. _Pastor aeternus_, cap.

iv.); "we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma, that the Roman

Pontiff, when he speaks _ex cathedra_--i.e. when, in his character as

Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme

apostolic authority, he lays down that a certain doctrine concerning

faith or morals is binding upon the universal Church,--possesses, by the

Divine assistance which was promised to him in the person of the blessed

Saint Peter, that same infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer

thought fit to endow His Church, to define its doctrine with regard to

faith and morals; and, consequently, that these definitions of the Roman

Pontiff are irreformable in themselves, and not in consequence of the

consent of the Church." A few notes will suffice to elucidate this

pronouncement.

(a) As the Council expressly says, the infallibility of the pope is not

other than that of the Church; this is a point which is too often

forgotten or misunderstood. The pope enjoys it in person, but solely

_qua_ head of the Church, and as the authorized organ of the

ecclesiastical body. For this exercise of the primacy as for the others,

we must conceive of the pope and the episcopate united to him as a

continuation of the Apostolic College and its head Peter. The head of

the College possesses and exercises by himself alone the same powers as

the College which is united with him; not by delegation from his

colleagues, but because he is their established chief. The pope when

teaching _ex cathedra_ acts as head of the whole episcopal body and of

the whole Church.

(b) If the Divine constitution of the Church has not changed in its

essential points since our Lord, the mode of exercise of the various

powers of its head has varied; and that of the supreme teaching power as

of the others. This explains the late date at which the dogma was

defined, and the assertion that the dogma was already contained in that

of the papal primacy established by our Lord himself in the person of St

Peter. A certain dogmatic development is not denied, nor an evolution in

the direction of a centralization in the hands of the pope of the

exercise of his powers as primate; it is merely required that this

evolution should be well understood and considered as legitimate.

(c) As a matter of fact the infallibility of the pope, when giving

decisions in his character as head of the Church, was generally admitted

before the Vatican Council. The only reservation which the most advanced

Gallicans dared to formulate, in the terms of the celebrated declaration

of the clergy of France (1682), had as its object the irreformable

character of the pontifical definitions, which, it was claimed, could

only have been acquired by them through the assent of the Church. This

doctrine, rather political than theological, was a survival of the

errors which had come into being after the Great Schism, and especially

at the council of Constance; its object was to put the Church above its

head, as the council of Constance had put the ecumenical council above

the pope, as though the council could be ecumenical without its head. In

reality it was Gallicanism alone which was condemned at the Vatican

Council, and it is Gallicanism which is aimed at in the last phrase of

the definition we have quoted.

(d) Infallibility is the guarantee against error, not in all matters,

but only in the matter of dogma and morality; everything else is beyond

its power, not only truths of another order, but even discipline and the

ecclesiastical laws, government and administration, &c.

(e) Again, not all dogmatic teachings of the pope are under the

guarantee of infallibility; neither his opinions as private instructor,

nor his official allocutions, however authoritative they may be, are

infallible; it is only his _ex cathedra_ instruction which is

guaranteed; this is admitted by everybody.

But when does the pope speak _ex cathedra_, and how is it to be

distinguished when he is exercising his infallibility? As to this point

there are two schools, or rather two tendencies, among Catholics: some

extend the privilege of infallibility to all official exercise of the

supreme _magisterium_, and declare infallible, e.g. the papal

encyclicals.[1] Others, while recognizing the supreme authority of the

papal _magisterium_ in matters of doctrine, confine the infallibility to

those cases alone in which the pope chooses to make use of it, and

declares positively that he is imposing on all the faithful the

obligation of belief in a certain definite proposition, under pain of

heresy and exclusion from the Church; they do not insist on any special

form, but only require that the pope should clearly manifest his will to

the Church. This second point of view, as clearly expounded by Mgr

Joseph Fessler (1813-1872), bishop of St Pölten, who was secretary to

the Vatican Council, in his work _Die wahre und die falsche

Unfehlbarkeit der Päpste_ (French trans. _La vraie et la fausse

infaillibilité_, Paris, 1873), and by Cardinal Newman in his "Letter to

the Duke of Norfolk," is the correct one, and this is clear from the

fact that it has never been blamed by the ecclesiastical authority.

Those who hold the latter opinion have been able to assert that since

the Vatican Council no infallible definition had yet been formulated by

the popes, while recognizing the supreme authority of the encyclicals of

Leo XIII.

It is remarkable that the definition of the infallibility of the pope

did not appear among the projects (_schemata_) prepared for the

deliberations of the Vatican Council (1869). It doubtless arose from the

proposed forms for the definitions of the primacy and the pontifical

_magisterium_. The chapter on the infallibility was only added at the

request of the bishops and after long hesitation on the part of the

cardinal presidents. The proposed form, first elaborated in the

conciliary commission _de fide_, was the object of long public

discussions from the 50th general congregation (May 13th, 1870) to the

85th (July 13th); the constitution as a whole was adopted at a public

session, on the 18th, of the 535 bishops present, two only replied "_Non

placet_"; but about 50 had preferred not to be present. The

controversies occasioned by this question had started from the very

beginning of the Council, and were carried on with great bitterness on

both sides. The minority, among whom were prominent Cardinals Rauscher

and Schwarzenberg, Hefele, bishop of Rotterdam (the historian of the

councils) Cardinal Mathieu, Mgr Dupanloup, Mgr Maret, &c., &c., did not

pretend to deny the papal infallibility; they pleaded the

inopportuneness of the definition and brought forward difficulties

mainly of an historical order, in particular the famous condemnation of

Pope Honorius by the 6th ecumenical council of Constantinople in 680.

The majority, in which Cardinal Manning played a very active part, took

their stand on theological reasons of the strongest kind; they invoked

the promises of Our Lord to St Peter: "Thou art Peter, and upon this

rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail

against her"; and again, "I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith

fail not; and do thou in thy turn confirm thy brethren"; they showed the

popes, in the course of the ages, acting as the guardians and judges of

the faith, arousing or welcoming dogmatic controversies and

authoritatively settling them, exercising the supreme direction in the

councils and sanctioning their decisions; they explained that the few

historical difficulties did not involve any dogmatic defect in the

teaching of the popes; they insisted upon the necessity of a supreme

tribunal giving judgment in the name of the whole of the scattered

Church; and finally, they considered that the definition had become

opportune for the very reason that under the pretext of its

inopportuneness the doctrine itself was being attacked.

The definition once proclaimed, controversies rapidly ceased; the

bishops who were among the minority one after the other formulated their

loyal adhesion to the Catholic dogma. The last to do so in Germany was

Hefele, who published the decrees of the 10th of April 1871, thus

breaking a long friendship with Döllinger; in Austria, where the

government had thought good to revive for the occasion the royal

_placet_, Mgr Haynald and Mgr Strossmayer delayed the publication, the

former till the 15th of September 1871, the latter till the 26th of

December 1872. In France the adhesion was rapid, and the publication was

only delayed by some bishops in consequence of the disastrous war with

Prussia. Though no bishops abandoned it, a few priests, such as Father

Hyacinthe Loyson, and a few scholars at the German universities refused

their adhesion. The most distinguished among the latter was Döllinger,

who resisted all the advances of Mgr Scherr, archbishop of Munich, was

excommunicated on the 17th of April 1871, and died unreconciled, though

without joining any separate group. After him must be mentioned

Friedrich of Munich, several professors of Bonn, and Reinkens of

Breslau, who was the first bishop of the "Old Catholics." These

professors formed the "Committee of Bonn," which organized the new

Church. It was recognized and protected first in Bavaria, thanks to the

minister Freiherr Johann von Lutz, then in Saxony, Baden, Württemberg,

Prussia, where it was the pretext for, if not the cause of, the

Kulturkampf, and finally in Switzerland, especially at Geneva.

For the theological aspects of the dogma of infallibility, see, among

many others, L. Billot, S.J., _De Ecclesia Christi_ (3 vols., Rome,

1898-1900); or G. Wilmers, S.J., _De Christi Ecclesia_ (Regensburg,

1897). The most accessible popular work is that of Mgr Fessler already

mentioned. For the history of the definition see VATICAN COUNCIL; also

PAPACY, GALLICANISM, FEBRONIANISM, OLD CATHOLICS, &c. (A. Bo.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] It was in this sense that it was understood by Döllinger, who

pointed out that the definition of the dogma would commit the Church

to all past official utterances of the popes, e.g. the Syllabus of

1864, and therefore to a war _à outrance_ against modern

civilization. This view was embodied in the circular note to the

Powers, drawn up by Döllinger and issued by the Bavarian prime

minister Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst on April 9, 1869. It was

also the view universally taken by the German governments which

supported the _Kulturkampf_ in a greater or less degree.--ED.

INFAMY (Lat. _infamia_), public disgrace or loss of character. Infamy

(_infamia_) occupied a prominent place in Roman law, and took the form

of a censure on individuals pronounced by a competent authority in the

state, which censure was the result either of certain actions which they

had committed or of certain modes of life which they had pursued. Such a

censure involved disqualification for certain rights both in public and

in private law (see A. H. J. Greenidge, _Infamia, its Place in Roman

Public and Private Law_, 1894). In English law infamy attached to a

person in consequence of conviction of some crime. The effect of infamy

was to render a person incompetent to give evidence in any legal

proceeding. Infamy as a cause of incompetency was abolished by an act of

1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 85).

The word "infamous" is used in a particular sense in the English Medical

Act of 1858, which provides that if any registered medical practitioner

is judged by the General Medical Council, after due inquiry, to have

been guilty of infamous conduct in any professional respect, his name

may be erased from the Medical Register. The General Medical Council are

the sole judges of whether a practitioner has been guilty of conduct

infamous in a professional respect, and they act in a judicial capacity,

but an accused person is generally allowed to appear by counsel. Any

action which is regarded as disgraceful or dishonourable by a man's

professional brethren--such, for example, as issuing advertisements in

order to induce people to consult him in preference to other

practitioners--may be found infamous.

INFANCY, in medical practice, the nursing age, or the period during

which the child is at the breast. As a matter of convenience it is usual

to include in it children up to the age of one year. The care of an

infant begins with the preparations necessary for its birth and the

endeavour to ensure that taking place under the best possible sanitary

conditions. On being born the normal infant cries lustily, drawing air

into its lungs. As soon as the umbilical cord which unites the child to

the mother has ceased to pulsate, it is tied about 2 in. from the

child's navel and is divided above the ligature. The cord is wrapped in

a sterilized gauze pad and the dressing is not removed until the seventh

to the tenth day, when the umbilicus is healed.

The baby is now a separate entity, and the first event in its life is

the first bath. The room ready to receive a new-born infant should be

kept at a temperature of 70° F. The temperature of the first bath should

be 100° F. The child should be well supported in the bath by the left

hand of the nurse, and care should be taken to avoid wetting the gauze

pad covering the cord. In some cases infants are covered with a white

substance termed "vernix caseosa," which may be carefully removed by a

little olive oil. Sponges should never be used, as they tend to harbour

bacteria. A soft pad of muslin or gauze which can be boiled should take

its place. After the first ten days 94° F. is the most suitable

temperature for a bath. When the baby has been well dried the skin may

be dusted with pure starch powder to which a small quantity of boric

acid has been added. The most important part of the toilet of a new-born

infant is the care of the eyes, which should be carefully cleansed with

gauze dipped in warm water and one drop of a 2% solution of nitrate of

silver dropped into each eye. The clothes of a newly born child should

consist exclusively of woollen undergarments, a soft flannel binder,

which should be tied on, being placed next the skin, with a long-sleeved

woven wool vest and over this a loose garment of flannel coming below

the feet and long enough to tuck up. Diapers should be made of soft

absorbent material such as well-washed linen and should be about two

yards square and folded in a three-cornered shape. An infant should

always sleep in a bed or cot by itself. In 1907, of 749 deaths from

violence in England and Wales of children under one month, 445 were due

to suffocation in bed with adults. A healthy infant should spend most of

its time asleep and should be laid into its cot immediately after

feeding.

The normal infant at birth weighs about 7 lb. During the two or three

days following birth a slight decrease in weight occurs, usually 5 to 6

oz. When nursing begins the child increases in weight up to the seventh

day, when the infant will have regained its weight at birth. From the

second to the fourth week after birth (according to Camerer) an infant

should gain 1 oz. daily or 1½ to 2 lb. monthly, from the fourth to the

sixth month ½ to 2/3 of an oz. daily or 1 lb. monthly, from the sixth to

the twelfth month ½ oz. daily or less than 1 lb. monthly. At the sixth

month it should be twice the weight at birth. The average weight at the

twelfth month is 20 to 21 lb. The increase of weight in artificially fed

is less regular than in breast-fed babies.

_Food._--There is but one proper food for an infant, and that is its

mother's milk, unless when in exceptional circumstances the mother is

not allowed to nurse her child. Artificially fed children are much more

liable to epidemic diseases. The child should be applied to the breast

the first day to induce the flow of milk. The first week the child

should be fed at intervals of two hours, the second week eight to nine

times, and the fourth week eight times at intervals of two and a half

hours. At two months the child is being suckled six times daily at

intervals of three hours, the last feed being at 11 P.M. Where a mother

cannot nurse a child the child must be artificially fed. Cow's milk must

be largely diluted to suit the new-born infant. Armstrong gives the

following table of dilution:--

1st week, milk 1 tablespoonful, water 2 tablespoonfuls

at 3 months, " 3½ tablespoonfuls, " 3 " \ added

at 6 months, " 9 " " 3 " > with

at 9 months, " 12 " " 3 " / sugar.

Koplik has drawn out a table of the amounts to be given as follows:--

1st day 3 feeds of 10 cc total 1 oz. in 24 hours

2nd day 8 " 20 cc " 5½ "

3rd day 8 " 30 cc (1 oz.) " 8 "

7th day 9 " 50 cc " 13½ "

4th week 8 " 60 cc (2 oz.) " 16 "

3 months 7 " 4 oz. " 28 "

6 months 6 " 7 oz. " 42 "

9 months 6 " 8½ oz. " 50 "

In cities it is advisable that milk should be either sterilized by

boiling or pasteurized, i.e. subjected to a form of heating which, while

destroying pathogenic bacteria, does not alter the taste. The milk in a

suitable apparatus is subjected to a temperature of 65° C. (149° F.) for

half an hour and is then rapidly cooled to 20° C. (68° F.). Children fed

on pasteurized milk should be given a teaspoonful of fresh orange juice

daily to supply the missing acid and salts.

Artificial feeding is given by means of a bottle. In France all bottles

with rubber tubes have been made illegal. They are a fruitful source of

infection, as it is impossible to keep them clean. The best bottle is

the boat-shaped one, with a wide mouth at one end, to which is attached

a rubber teat, while the other end has a screw stopper. This is readily

cleansed and a stream of water can be made to flow through it. All

bottle teats should be boiled at least once a day for ten minutes with

soda and kept in a glass-covered jar until required. A feed should be

given at the temperature of 100° F.

At the ninth month a cereal may be added to the food. Before that the

infant is unable to digest starchy foods. Much starch tends to

constipation, and it is rarely wise to give starchy preparations in a

proportion of more than 3% to children under a year old. A child who is

carefully fed in a cleanly manner should not have diarrhoea, and its

appearance indicates carelessness somewhere. The English

registrar-general's returns for 1906 show that in the seventy-six

largest towns in England and Wales 14,306 deaths of infants under one

year from diarrhoea took place in July, August and September alone.

These deaths are largely preventable; when Dr Budin of Paris established

his "Consultations de Nourissons" the infant mortality of Paris amounted

to 178 per 1000, but at the consultation the rate was 46 per 1000. At

Varengeville-sur-mer a consultation for nurslings was instituted under

Dr Poupalt of Dieppe in 1904. During the seven previous years the infant

mortality had averaged 145 per 1000. In 1904-1905 not one infant at the

consultation died, though it was a summer of extreme heat, and in 1898

when similar heat had prevailed the infant mortality was 285 per 1000.

The deaths of infants under one year in England and Wales, taken from

the registrar-general's returns for 1907, amounted to 117.62 per 1000

births, an alarming sacrifice of life. France has been turning her

attention to the establishment of infant consultations on the lines of

Dr Budin's, and similar dispensaries under the designation "Gouttes de

lait" have been widely established in that country; gratifying results

in the fall in infant mortality have followed. At the Fécamp dispensary

the mortality from diarrhoea has fallen to 2.8, while that in

neighbouring towns is from 50 to 76 per 1000 (Sir A. Simpson). It has

been left to private enterprise in England to deal with this problem.

The St Pancras "School for Mothers" was established in 1907 in

north-west London. Though started by private persons it was in 1909

worked in connexion with the Health Department of the Borough Council,

but was supported by charitable subscriptions and by a small

contribution from the student mothers. There are classes for mothers on

the care of their health during pregnancy, infant feeding, home nursing,

cooking and needlework. Poor mothers unable to contribute get free

dinners for three months previous to the birth of their child and for

nine months after if the child is breast-fed. Two doctors are in

attendance, and mothers are encouraged to bring their children

fortnightly to be weighed, and receive advice. The average attendance is

ninety. A baby is said to have "graduated" when it is a year old. An

interesting development in connexion with the scheme is a class for

fathers at which the medical officer of health for the district lectures

on the duties of fatherhood. Similar schools for mothers are now

established in Fulham and Stepney. Weighing centres have been

established at Dundee, Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham, Aberdeen,

Bolton, Belfast, and Newcastle-on-Tyne. An infants' milk depôt has been

established at Finsbury, and effort is being made to establish milk

laboratories where separate nursing portions of sterile milk could be

supplied to poor mothers. The Walker-Gordon milk laboratories in the

United States are a step in this direction.

The average length of a child at birth is 19-½ in. and during the first

year the average increase is 7(7/8) in. A new-born infant is deaf

(Koplik). This is supposed to be due to the blocking of the eustachian

tubes with mucus. On the fourth day there is some evidence of hearing,

and at the fifth week noises in the room disturb it. A healthy infant

may be taken out of doors when a fortnight old in summer, after which it

should have a daily outing, the eyes being protected from the direct

rays of the sun. On the second day the eyes are sensitive to light, in

the second month the infant notices colours, at the sixth month it knows

its parents, and should be able to hold its head up. At the sixth month

the baby begins to cut its temporary teeth. After their appearance they

should be cleaned once a day by a piece of gauze moistened in boric acid

solution. Attempts to stand are made about the tenth month, and walking

begins about the fourteenth month. By this time the intelligence should

be developed and memory is observed. A child a year old should be able

to articulate a few small words. With the advent of walking and speech

the period of infancy may be said to end.

See Pierre Budin, The Nursling (1907); Henry Koplik, _Disease of

Infancy and Childhood_ (1906); Eric Pritchard, _The Physiological

Feeding of Infants_ (1904); Eric Pritchard, _Infant Education_ (1907);

John Grimshaw, _Your Child's Health_ (1908). (H. L. H.)

INFANT (in early forms _enfaunt_, _enfant_, through the Fr. _enfant_,

from Lat. _infans_, _in_, not, and _fans_, the present participle of

_fari_, to speak), a child; in non-legal use, a very young child, a

baby, or one of an age suitable to be taught in an "infant school"; in

law, a person under full age, and therefore subject to disabilities not

affecting persons who have attained full age.

This article deals with "infants" in the last sense; for the more

general sense see INFANCY and CHILD. The period of full age varies

widely in different systems, as do also the disabilities attaching to

nonage (non-age). In Roman law, the age of puberty, fixed at fourteen

for males and twelve for females, was recognized as a dividing line.

Under that age a child was under the guardianship of a tutor, but

several degrees of infancy were recognized. The first was absolute

infancy; after that, until the age of seven, a child was _infantiae

proximus_; and from the eighth year to puberty he was _pubertati

proximus_. An infant in the last stage could, with the assent of his

tutor, act so as to bind himself by stipulations; in the earlier stages

he could not, although binding stipulations could be made to him in the

second stage. After puberty, until the age of twenty-five years, a

modified infancy was recognized, during which the minor's acts were not

void altogether, but voidable, and a curator was appointed to manage his

affairs. The difference between the tutor and the curator in Roman law

was marked by the saying that the former was appointed for the care of

the person, the latter for the estate of the pupil. These principles

apply only to children who are _sui juris_. The _patria potestas_, so

long as it lasts, gives to the father the complete control of the son's

actions. The right of the father to appoint tutors to his children by

will (_testamentarii_) was recognized by the Twelve Tables, as was also

the tutorship of the _agnati_ (or legal as distinct from natural

relations) in default of such an appointment. Tutors who held office in

virtue of a general law were called _legitimi_. Besides and in default

of these, tutors _dativi_ were appointed by the magistrates. These terms

are still used in much the same sense in modern systems founded on the

Roman law, as may be seen in the case of Scotland, noticed below.

By the law of England full age is twenty-one, and all minors alike are

subject to incapacities. The period of twenty-one years is regarded as

complete at the beginning of the day before the birthday: for example,

an infant born on the first day of January attains his majority at the

first moment of the 31st of December. The incapacity of an infant is

designed for his own protection, and its general effect is to prevent

him from binding himself absolutely by obligations. Of the contracts of

an infant which are binding _ab initio_, the most important are those

relating to "necessaries." By the Sale of Goods Act 1893, an infant

liable on a contract for necessaries can be sued only for a reasonable

price, not necessarily the price he agreed to pay. The same statute

declares "necessaries" to mean "goods suitable to the condition in life

of the infant, and to his actual requirements at the time of the sale

and delivery." In the case of goods having a market price, the market

price is reasonable. In all other cases the question is one of fact for

the jury. The protection of infants extends sometimes to transactions

completed after full age; the relief of heirs who have been induced to

barter away their expectations is an example. "Catching bargains," as

they are called, throw on the persons claiming the benefit of them the

burden of proving their substantial righteousness.

At common law a bargain made by an infant might be ratified by him after

full age, and would then become binding. Lord Tenterden's act required

the ratification to be in writing. But now, by the Infants' Relief Act

1874, "all contracts entered into by infants for the repayment of money

lent or to be lent, or for goods supplied or to be supplied (other than

contracts for necessaries), and all accounts stated, shall be absolutely

void," and "no action shall be brought whereby to charge any person upon

any promise made after full age to pay any debt contracted during

infancy, or upon any ratification made after full age of any promise or

contract made during infancy, whether there shall or shall not be any

new consideration for such promise or ratification after full age." For

some years after the passage of this statute highly conflicting views

were held as to the meaning of the part of section 2 whereby it was

enacted that "no action shall be brought whereby to charge any person

... upon any ratification made after full age of any promise or contract

made during infancy." Some authorities were of opinion that the section

only applied to the three classes of contract made void by the previous

section, viz. for goods supplied, money lent and on account stated.

Others thought the effect to be that no contract, except for

necessaries, made during infancy could be enforced after the infant came

to full age. After several conflicting decisions it has been settled

that both these views were wrong. Of the infant's contracts voidable at

common law there were two kinds. The first kind became void at full age,

unless expressly ratified. The second kind were valid, unless repudiated

within a reasonable time after full age was attained by the infant. The

Infants' Relief Act (section 2) strikes only at the first class and

leaves the second untouched. Thus a promise of marriage made during

infancy cannot be ratified so as to become actionable: but an infant's

marriage settlement, being of the second class, is valid, unless it is

repudiated within a reasonable time after the infant attains full age.

What is a reasonable time depends on all the circumstances of the case.

In a case decided in 1893 a settlement made by a female infant was

allowed to be repudiated thirty years after she attained full age, but

the circumstances were exceptional. A contract of marriage may be

lawfully made by persons under age. Marriageable age is fourteen in

males and twelve in females. So, generally, an infant may bind himself

by contract of apprenticeship or service. Since the passing of the Wills

Act, an infant, except he be a soldier in actual military service or a

seaman at sea, is unable to make a will. Infancy is in general a

disqualification for public offices and professions, e.g. to be a member

of parliament or an elector, a mayor or burgess, a priest or deacon, a

barrister or solicitor, &c.

Before 1886 the custody of an infant belonged in the first place, and

against all other persons, to the father, who was said to be "the

guardian of his children by nature and nurture"; and the father might by

deed or will dispose of the custody or tuition of his children until the

age of twenty-one.

The Guardianship of Infants Act 1886 placed the mother almost on the

same footing as the father as to guardianship of infants. On the death

of the father the mother becomes guardian under the statute, either

alone when no guardian has been appointed by the father, or jointly with

any guardian appointed by him under 12 Chas. II. c. 24. A change of the

law even more important is that whereby the mother may by deed or will

appoint a guardian or guardians of her infant children to act after her

death. If the father survives the mother, the mother's guardian can only

act if it be shown to the satisfaction of the court that the father is

unfitted to be the sole guardian. On the death of the father, the

guardian so appointed by the mother acts jointly with any guardian

appointed by the father. The Guardianship of Infants Act 1886 also gives

power to the high court and to county courts to make orders, upon the

application of the mother, regarding the custody of an infant, and the

right of access thereto of either parent. The court must take into

consideration "the welfare of the infant, and ... the conduct of the

parents, and ... the wishes as well of the mother as of the father." The

same statute also empowers the high court of justice, "on being

satisfied that it is for the welfare of the infant," to "remove from his

office any testamentary guardian or any guardian appointed or acting by

virtue of this act," and also to appoint another in place of the

guardian so removed.

The same statute gives power to a court sitting in divorce practically

to take away from a parent guilty of a matrimonial offence all rights of

guardianship. When a decree for judicial separation or divorce is

pronounced, the court pronouncing it may at the same time declare the

parent found guilty of misconduct to be unfit to have the custody of the

children of the marriage. "In such case the parent so declared to be

unfit shall not, upon the death of the other parent, be entitled as of

right to the custody or guardianship of such children." The court

exercises this power very sparingly. When the declaration of unfitness

is made, the practical effect is to give to the innocent parent the sole

guardianship, as well as power to appoint a testamentary guardian to the

exclusion of the guilty parent.

Another radical change has been made in the rights of parents as to

guardianship of their children. In consequence of several cases where,

after children had been rescued by philanthropic persons from squalid

homes and improper surroundings, the courts had felt bound by law to

redeliver them to their parents, the Custody of Children Act 1891 was

passed. It provides that when the parent of a child applies to the court

for a writ or order for the production of the child, and the court is of

opinion that the parent has abandoned or deserted the child, or that he

has otherwise so conducted himself that the court should refuse to

enforce his right to the custody of the child, the court may, in its

discretion, decline to issue the writ or make the order. If the child,

in respect of whom the application is made, is being brought up by

another person ("person" includes "school or institution"), or is being

boarded out by poor-law guardians, the court may, if it orders the child

to be given up to the parent, further order the parent to pay all or

part of the cost incurred by such person or guardians in bringing up the

child.

A parent who has abandoned or deserted his child is, prima facie, unfit

to have the custody of the child. And before the court can make an order

giving him the custody, the onus lies on him to prove that he is fit.

The same rule applies where the child has been allowed by the parent "to

be brought up by another person at that person's expense, or by the

guardians of a poor-law union, for such a length of time and under such

circumstances as to satisfy the court that the parent was unmindful of

his parental duties."

The 4th section of the Custody of Children Act 1891 preserves the right

of the parent to control the religious training of the infant. The

father, however unfit he may be to have the custody of his child, has

the legal right to require the child to be brought up in his own

religion. If the father is dead, and has left no directions on the

point, the mother may assert a similar right. But the court may consult

the wishes of the child; and when an infant has been allowed by the

father to grow up in a faith different from his own, the court will not,

as a rule, order any change in the character of religious instruction.

This is especially the case where the infant appears to be settled in

his convictions.

In the same direction as the Custody of Children Act 1891 is the

Children Act 1908, whereby considerable powers have been conferred on

courts of summary jurisdiction (see CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO).

There is not at common law any corresponding obligation on the part of

either parent to maintain or educate the children. The legal duties of

parents in this respect are only those created by the poor laws, the

Education Acts and the Children Act 1908.

An infant is liable to a civil action for torts and wrongful acts

committed by him. But, as it is possible so to shape the pleadings as to

make what is in substance a right arising out of contract take the form

of a right arising from civil injury, care is taken that an infant in

such a case shall not be held liable. With respect to crime, mere

infancy is not a defence, but a child under seven years of age is

presumed to be incapable of committing a crime, and between seven and

fourteen his capacity requires to be affirmatively proved. After

fourteen an infant is _doli capax_.

The law of Scotland follows the leading principles of the Roman law.

The period of minority (which ends at twenty-one) is divided into two

stages, that of absolute incapacity (until the age of fourteen in

males, and twelve in females), during which the minor is in

pupilarity, and that of partial incapacity (between fourteen and

twenty-one), during which he is under curators. The guardians (or

tutors) of the pupil are either tutors-nominate (appointed by the

father in his will); tutors-at-law (being the next male agnate of

twenty-five years of age), in default of tutors-nominate; or

tutors-dative, appointed by royal warrant in default of the other two.

No act done by the pupil, or action raised in his name, has any effect

without the interposition of a guardian. After fourteen, all acts done

by a minor having curators are void without their concurrence. Every

deed in nonage, whether during pupilarity or minority, and whether

authorized or not by tutors or curators, is liable to reduction on

proof of "lesion," i.e. of material injury, due to the fact of nonage,

either through the weakness of the minor himself or the imprudence or

negligence of his curators. Damage in fact arising on a contract in

itself just and reasonable would not be lesion entitling to

restitution. Deeds in nonage, other than those which are absolutely

null _ab initio_, must be challenged within the _quadriennium utile_,

or four years after majority.

The Guardianship of Infants Act 1886, the Custody of Children Act 1891

and the Children Act 1908, mentioned above, all apply to Scotland.

In the United States, the principles of the English common law as to

infancy prevail, generally the most conspicuous variations being those

affecting the age at which women attain majority. In many states this

is fixed at eighteen. There is some diversity of practice as to the

age at which a person can make a will of real or personal estate.

INFANTE (Spanish and Portuguese form of Lat. _infans_, young child), a

title of the sons of the sovereign of Spain and Portugal, the

corresponding _infanta_ being given to the daughters. The title is not

borne by the eldest son of the king of Spain, who is prince of Asturias,

_Il principe de Asturias_. Until the severance of Brazil from the

Portuguese monarchy, the eldest son was prince of Brazil. While a son or

daughter of the sovereign of Spain is by right infante or infanta of

Spain, the title, alone, is granted to other members of the blood royal

by the sovereign.

INFANTICIDE, the killing of a newly-born child or of the matured foetus.

When practised by civilized peoples the subject of infanticide concerns

the criminologist and the jurist; but its importance in anthropology, as

it involves a widespread practice among primitive or savage nations,

requires more detailed attention. J. F. McLennan (_Studies in Ancient

History_, pp. 75 et seq.) suggests that the practice of female

infanticide was once universal, and that in it is to be found the origin

of exogamy. Much evidence, however, has been adduced against this

hypothesis by Herbert Spencer and Edward Westermarck. Infanticide, both

of males and females, is far less widespread among savage races than

McLennan supposed. It certainly is common in many lands, and more

females are killed than males; but among many fierce and savage peoples

it is almost unknown. Thus among the Tuski, Ahts, Western Eskimo and the

Botocudos new-born children are killed now and then, if they are weak

and deformed, or for some other reason (such as the superstition

attaching to birth of twins) but without distinction of sex. Among the

Dakota Indians and Crees female infanticide is rare. The Blackfoot

Indians believe that a woman guilty of such an act will never reach "the

Happy Mountain" after death, but will hover round the scene of her

misdeed with branches of trees tied to her legs. The Aleutians hold that

child-murder brings misfortune on the whole village. Among the Abipones

it is common, but the boys are usually the victims, because it is

customary to buy a wife for a son, whereas a grown daughter will always

command a price. In Africa, where a warm climate and abundance of food

simplify the problem of existence, the crime is not common. Herr Valdau

relates that a Bakundu woman, accused of it, was condemned to death. In

Samoa, in the Mitchell and Hervey Islands, and in parts of New Guinea,

it was unheard of; while among the cannibals, the Solomon Islanders, it

occurred rarely. A theory has been advanced by L. Fison (_Kamilaroi and

Kurnai_, 1880) that female infanticide is far less common among the

lower savages than among the more advanced tribes. Among some of the

most degraded of human beings, such as the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego,

the crime was unknown, except when committed by the mother "from

jealousy or hatred of her husband or because of desertion and

wretchedness." It is said that certain Californian Indians were never

guilty of child-murder before the arrival of the whites; while Wm. Ellis

(_Polynesian Researches_, i. 249) thinks it most probable that the

custom was less prevalent in earlier than later Polynesian history. The

weight of evidence tends to support Darwin's theory that during the

earliest period of human development man did not lose that strong

instinct, the love of his young, and consequently did not practice

infanticide; that, in short, the crime is not characteristic of

primitive races.

Infanticide may be said to arise from four reasons. It may be (1) an act

of callous brutality or to satisfy cannibalistic cravings. A Fuegian,

Darwin relates, dashed his child's brains out for upsetting a basket of

fish. An Australian, seeing his infant son ill, killed, roasted and ate

him. In some parts of Africa the negroes bait lion-traps with their own

children. Some South American Indians, such as the Moxos, abandon or

kill them without reason; while African and Polynesian cannibals eat

them without the excuse of the periodic famines which made the

Tasmanians regard the birth of a child as a piece of good fortune.

2. Or infanticide may be the result of the struggle for existence. Thus

in Polynesia, while the climate ensures food in plenty, the relative

smallness of the islands imposed the custom on all families without

distinction. In the Hawaiian Islands all children, after the third or

fourth, were strangled or buried alive. At Tahiti fathers had the right

(and used it) of killing their newly-born children by suffocation. The

chiefs were obliged by custom to kill all their daughters. The society

of the Areois, famous in the Society Islands, imposed infanticide upon

the women members by oath. In other islands all girl-children were

spared, but only two boys in each family were reared. The difficulties

of suckling partly explain the custom of killing twins. For the same

reason the Eskimo and Red Indians used to bury the infant with the

mother who died in childbirth. Among warrior and hunter tribes, where

women could not act as beasts of burden as in agricultural communities,

and where a large number of girls were likely to attract the hostile

attentions of neighbouring tribesmen, girl-babies were murdered. Arabs,

in ancient times, buried alive the majority of female children. In many

lands infanticide was regarded as a meritorious act on the part of a

parent, done, as a precaution against famine, in the interests of the

tribe. In other parts of the world, infanticide results from customs

which impose heavy burdens on child-rearing. Of these artificial

hardships the best example is afforded by India. There the practice,

though forbidden by both the Vedas and the Koran, prevailed among the

Rajputs and certain aboriginal tribes. Among the aristocratic Rajputs,

it was thought dishonourable that a girl should remain unmarried.

Moreover, a girl may not marry below her caste; she ought to marry her

superior, or at least her equal. This reasoning was most powerful with

the highest castes, in which the disproportion of the sexes was

painfully apparent. But, assuming marriage to be possible, it was

ruinously expensive to the bride's father, the cost in the case of some

rajahs having been known to exceed £100,000. To avoid all this, the

Rajput killed a proportion of his daughters--sometimes in a very

singular way. A pill of tobacco and bhang might be given to the new-born

child; or it was drowned in milk;[1] or the mother's breast was smeared

with opium or the juice of the poisonous _datura_. A common method was

to cover the child's mouth with a plaster of cow-dung, before it drew

breath. Infanticide was also practised to a small extent by some sects

of the aboriginal Khonds and by the poorer hill-tribes of the Himalayas.

Where infanticide occurs in India, though it really rests on the

economic facts stated, there is usually some poetical tradition of its

origin. Infanticide from motives of prudence was common among some

American Indian tribes of the north-west, with whom the "potlatch" was

an essential part of their daughter's marriage ceremonies.

3. Or infanticide may be in the nature of a religious observance. The

gods must be appeased with blood, and it is believed that no sacrifice

can be so pleasing to them as the child of the worshipper. Such were the

motives impelling parents to the burning of children in the worship of

Moloch. In India children were thrown into the sacred river Ganges, and

adoration paid to the alligators who fed on them. Where the custom

prevails as a sacrifice the male child is usually the victim.

4. Or, finally, infanticide may have a social or political reason. Thus

at Sparta (and in other places in early Greek and Roman history) weakly

or deformed children were killed by order of the state, a custom

approved in the ideal systems of Aristotle and Plato, and still observed

among the Eskimo and the Kamchadales.

AUTHORITIES.--Herbert Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, i. 614-619;

McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_, pp. 75 et seq.; McLennan,

"Exogamy and Endogamy" in the _Fortnightly Review_, xxi. 884 et seq.;

Darwin, Descent of Man, ii. 400 et seq.; L. Fison, and A. W. Howitt,

_Kamilaroi and Kurnai_ (1880); Westermarck, _History of Human

Marriage_ (1894); Browne, _Infanticide: Its Origin, Progress and

Suppression_ (London, 1857); Lord Avebury, _Prehistoric Times_ (1900),

and _Origin of Civilization_ (1902).

_Law._--The crime of infanticide among civilized nations is still

frequent. It is however due in most cases to abnormal causes, such as a

sudden access of insanity, privation, unreasoning dislike to the child,

&c. It is most closely connected with illegitimacy in the class of farm

and domestic servants, the more common motive being the terror of the

mother of incurring the disgrace with which society visits the more

venial offence. Often, however, it is inspired by no better motive than

the wish to escape the burden of the child's support. The granting of

affiliation orders thus tends to save the lives of many children, though

it provides a motive for the paramour sometimes to share in the crime.

The laws of the European states differ widely on this subject--some of

them treating infanticide as a special crime, others regarding it merely

as a case of murder of unusually difficult proof. In the law of England

infanticide is murder or manslaughter according to the presence or

absence of deliberation. The infant must be a human being in the legal

sense; and "a child becomes a human being when it has completely

proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother, whether it has

breathed or not, and whether it has an independent circulation or not,

and whether the navel-string is severed or not; and the killing of such

a child is homicide when it dies after birth in consequence of injuries

received before, during or after birth." À child in the womb or in the

act of birth, though it may have breathed, is therefore not a human

being, the killing of which amounts to homicide. The older law of child

murder under a statute of James I. consisted of cruel presumptions

against the mother, and it was not till 1803 that trials for that

offence were placed under the ordinary rules of evidence. The crown now

takes upon itself the onus of proving in every case that the child has

been alive. This is often a matter of difficulty, and hence a frequent

alternative charge is that of concealment of birth (see BIRTH), or

concealment of pregnancy in Scotland. It is the opinion of the most

eminent of British medical jurists that this presumption has tended to

increase infanticide. Apart from this, the technical definition of human

life has excited a good deal of comment and some indignation. The

definition allows many wicked acts to go unpunished. The experience of

assizes in England shows that many children are killed when it is

impossible to prove that they were wholly born. The distinction taken by

the law was probably comprehended by the minds of the class to which

most of the unhappy mothers belong. Partly to meet this complaint it was

suggested to the Royal Commission of 1866 that killing during birth, or

within seven days thereafter, should be an offence punishable with penal

servitude. The second complaint is of an opposite character--partly that

infanticide by mothers is not a fit subject for capital punishment, and

partly that, whatever be the intrinsic character of the act, juries will

not convict or the executive will not carry out the sentence. Earl

Russell gave expression to this feeling when he proposed that no capital

sentence should be pronounced upon mothers for the killing of children

within six months after birth. When there has been a verdict of murder,

sentence of death must be passed, but the practice of the Home Office,

as laid down in 1908, is invariably to commute the death sentence to

penal servitude for life. The circumstances of the case and the

disposition and general progress of the prisoners under discipline in a

convict prison are then determining factors in the length of subsequent

detention, which rarely exceeds three years. After release, the

prisoner's further progress is carefully watched, and if it is seen to

be to her advantage the conditions of her release are cancelled and she

is restored to complete freedom.

In India measures against the practice were begun towards the end of the

18th century by Jonathan Duncan and Major Walker. They were continued by

a series of able and earnest officers during the 19th century. One of

its chief events, representing many minor occurrences, was the Amritsar

durbar of 1853, which was arranged by Lord Lawrence. At that meeting the

chiefs residing in the Punjab and the trans-Sutlej states signed an

agreement engaging to expel from caste every one who committed

infanticide, to adopt fixed and moderate rates of marriage expenses, and

to exclude from these ceremonies the minstrels and beggars who had so

greatly swollen the expense. According to the present law, if the female

children fall below a certain percentage in any tract or among any tribe

in northern India where infanticide formerly prevailed, the suspected

village is placed under police supervision, the cost being charged to

the locality. By these measures, together with a strictly enforced

system of reporting births and deaths, infanticide has been almost

trampled out; although some of the Rajput clans keep their female

offspring suspiciously close to the lowest average which secures them

from surveillance.

It is difficult to say to what extent infanticide prevails in the United

Kingdom. At one time a large number of children were murdered in England

for the purpose of obtaining the burial money from a benefit club,[2]

but protection against this risk has been provided for by the Friendly

Societies Act 1896, and the Collecting Societies Act 1896. The neglect

or killing of nurse-children is treated under BABY-FARMING, and

CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO.

In the United States, the elements of this offence are practically the

same as in England. The wilful killing of an unborn child is not

manslaughter unless made so by statute. To constitute manslaughter under

Laws N.Y. 1869, ch. 631, by attempts to produce miscarriage, the

"quickening" of the child must be averred and proved (_Evans_ v.

_People_, 49 New York Rep. 86; see also _Wallace_ v. _State_, 7 Texas

app. 570).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Baluchistan, where children are often drowned in milk, there

is a euphemistic proverb: "The lady's daughter died drinking milk."

[2] See _Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes_,

"Supplementary Report on Interment in Towns," by Edwin Chadwick

(_Parl. Papers_, 1843, xii. 395); and _The Social Condition and

Education of the People_, by Joseph Kay (1850).

INFANTRY, the collective name of soldiers who march and fight on foot

and are armed with hand-weapons. The word is derived ultimately from

Lat. _infans_, infant, but it is not clear how the word came to be used

to mean soldiers. The suggestion that it comes from a guard or regiment

of a Spanish infanta about the end of the 15th century cannot be

maintained in view of the fact that Spanish foot-soldiers of the time

were called _soldados_ and contrasted with French _fantassins_ and

Italian _fanteria_. The _New English Dictionary_ suggests that a

foot-soldier, being in feudal and early modern times the varlet or

follower of a mounted noble, was called a boy (cf. _Knabe_, _garçon_,

footman, &c., and see VALET).

HISTORICAL SKETCH

The importance of the infantry arm, both in history and at the present

time, cannot be summed up better and more concisely than in the phrase

used by a brilliant general of the Napoleonic era, General

Morand--"_L'infanterie, c'est l'armée_."

It may be confidently asserted that the original fighting man was a

foot-soldier. But infantry was differentiated as an "arm" considerably

later than cavalry; for when a new means of fighting (a chariot or a

horse) presented itself, it was assimilated by relatively picked men,

chiefs and noted warriors, who _ipso facto_ separated themselves from

the mass or reservoir of men. How this mass itself ceased to be a mere

residue and developed special characteristics; how, instead of the

cavalry being recruited from the best infantry, cavalry and infantry

came to form two distinct services; and how the arm thus constituted

organized itself, technically and tactically, for its own work--these

are the main questions that constitute the historical side of the

subject. It is obvious that as the "residue" was far the greatest part

of the army, the history of the foot-soldier is practically identical

with the history of soldiering.

It was only when a group of human beings became too large to be

surprised and assassinated by a few lurking enemies, that proper

fighting became the normal method of settling a quarrel or a rivalry.

Two groups, neither of which had been able to surprise the other, had to

meet face to face, and the instinct of self-preservation had to be

reconciled with the necessity of victory. From this it was an easy step

to the differentiation of the champion, the proved excellent fighting

man, and to providing this man, on whom everything depended, with all

assistance that better arms, armour, horse or chariot could give him.

But suppose our champion slain, how are we to make head against the

opposing champion? For long ages, we may suppose, the latter, as in the

_Iliad_, slaughtered the sheep who had lost their shepherd, but in the

end the "residue" began to organize itself, and to oppose a united front

to the enemy's champions--in which term we include all selected men,

whether horsemen, charioteers or merely specially powerful axemen and

swordsmen. But once the individual had lost his commanding position, the

problem presented itself in a new form--how to ensure that every member

of the group did his duty by the others--and the solution of this

problem for the conditions of the ancient hand-to-hand struggle marks

the historical beginning of infantry tactics.

The phalanx and the legion.

Gallic warriors bound themselves together with chains. The Greeks

organized the city state, which gave each small army solidarity and the

sense of duty to an ideal, and the phalanx, in which the file-leaders

were in a sense champions yet were made so chiefly by the unity of the

mass. But the Romans went farther. Besides developing solidarity and a

sense of duty, they improved on this conception of the battle to such a

degree that as a nation they may be called the best tacticians who ever

existed. Giving up the attempt to make all men fight equally well, they

dislocated the mass of combatants into three bodies, of which the first,

formed of the youngest and most impressionable men, was engaged at the

outset, the rest, more experienced men, being kept out of the turmoil.

This is the very opposite of the "champion" system. Those who would have

fled after the fall of the champions are engaged and "fought out" before

the champions enter the area of the contest, while the champions, who

possess in themselves the greatest power of resisting and mastering the

instinct of self-preservation, are kept back for the moment when

ordinary men would lose heart.

It might be said with perfect justice that without infantry there would

never have been discipline, for cavalry began and continued as a crowd

of champions. Discipline, which created and maintained the intrinsic

superiority of the Roman legion, depended first on the ideal of

patriotism. This was ingrained into every man from his earliest years

and expressed in a system of rewards and punishments which took effect

from the same ideal, in that rewards were in the main honorary in

character (mural crowns, &c.), while no physical punishment was too

severe for the man who betrayed, by default or selfishness, the cause of

Rome. Secondly, though every man knew his duty, not every man was equal

to doing it, and in recognition of this fact the Romans evolved the

system of three-line tactics in which the strong parts of the machine

neutralized the weak. The first of these principles, being psychological

in character, rose, flourished and decayed with the _moral_ of the

nation. The second, deduced from the first, varied with it, but as it

was objectively expressed in a system of tactics, which had to be

modified to suit each case, it varied also in proportion as the combat

took more or less abnormal forms. So closely knit were the parts of the

system that not only did the decadence of patriotism sap the legionary

organization, but also the unsuitability of that organization to new

conditions of warfare reacted unfavourably, even disastrously, on the

moral of the nation. Between them, the Roman infantry fell from its

proud place, and whereas in the Republic it was familiarly called the

"strength" (_robur_), by the 4th century A.D. it had become merely the

background for a variety of other arms and corps. Luxury produced

"egoists," to whom the rewards meant nothing and the punishments were

torture for the sake of torture. When therefore the Roman _imperium_

extended far enough to bring in silks from China and ivory from the

forests of central Africa, the citizen-army ceased to exist, and the

mere necessity for garrisoning distant savage lands threw the burden of

service upon the professional soldier.

The Roman Imperial Army.

The natural consequence of this last was the uniform training of every

man. There were no longer any primary differences between one cohort and

another, and though the value of the three-line system in itself ensured

its continuance, any cohort, however constituted, might find itself

serving in any one of the three lines, i.e. the _moral_ of the last line

was no better than that of the first. The best guarantee of success

became _uniform_ regimental excellence, and whereas Camillus or Scipio

found useful employment in battle for every citizen, Caesar complained

that a legion which had been sent him was too raw, though it had been

embodied for nine years. The conditions which were so admirably met by

the old system never reappeared; for before armies resumed a "citizen"

character the invention of firearms had subjected all ranks and lines

alike to the same ordeal of facing unseen death, and the old soldiers

were better employed in standing shoulder to shoulder with the young. In

brief, the old Roman organization was based on patriotism and

experience, and when patriotism gave place to "egoism," and the

experience of the citizen who spent every other summer in the field of

war gave place to the formal training of the paid recruit, it died,

unregretted either by the citizen or by the military chieftain. The

latter knew how to make the army his devoted servant, while the former

disliked military service and failed to prepare himself for the day when

the military chief and the mercenary overrode his rights and set up a

tyranny, and ultimately the inner provinces of the empire came to be

called _inermes_--unarmed, defenceless--in contrast to the borderland

where the all-powerful professional legions lay in garrison.

In these same frontier provinces the tactical disintegration of the

legion slowly accomplished itself. Originally designed for the

exigencies of the normal pitched battle on firm open fields, and even

after its professionalization retaining its character as a large battle

unit, it was soon fragmented through the exigencies of border warfare

into numerous detachments of greater or less size, and when the military

frontier of the empire was established, the legion became an almost

sedentary corps, finding the garrisons for the blockhouses on its own

section of the line of defence. Further, the old heavy arms and armour

which had given it the advantage in wars of conquest--in which the

barbarians, gathering to defend their homes, offered a target for the

blow of an army--were a great disadvantage when it became necessary to

police the conquered territory, to pounce upon swiftly moving bodies of

raiders before they could do any great harm. Thus gradually cavalry

became more numerous, and light infantry of all sorts more useful, than

the old-fashioned linesman. To these corps went the best recruits and

the smartest officers, the opportunities for good service and the

rewards for it. The legion became once more the "residue." Thus when the

"champion" reappeared on the battlefield the solidarity that neutralized

his power had ceased to exist.

The battle of Adrianople, the "last fight of the legion," illustrates

this. The frontal battle was engaged in the ordinary way, and the

cohorts of the first line of the imperial army were fighting man to man

with the front ranks of the Gothic infantry (which had indeed a

solidarity of its own, unlike the barbarians of the early empire, and

was further guaranteed against moral over-pressure by a wagon laager),

when suddenly the armoured heavy cavalry of the Goths burst upon their

flank and rear. There were no longer _Principes_ and _Triarii_ of the

old Republican calibre, but only average troops, in the second and third

lines, and they were broken at once. The first line felt the battle in

rear as well as in front and gave way. Thereafter the victors, horse and

foot, slaughtered unresisting herds of men, not desperate soldiers, and

on this day the infantry arm, as an arm, ceased to exist.

The Dark Ages.

Of course, not every soldier became a horseman, and still fewer could

provide themselves with armour. Regular infantry, too, was still

maintained for siege, mountain and forest warfare. But the _robur_, the

kernel of the line of battle, was gone, and though a few of the peoples

that fought their way into the area of civilization in the dark ages

brought with them the natural and primitive method of fighting on foot,

it was practically always a combination of mighty champions and

"residue," even though the latter bound themselves together by locked

shields, as the Gauls had bound themselves long before with chains, to

prevent "skulking." These infantry nations, without any infantry system

comparable to that of the Greeks and Romans, succumbed in turn to the

crowd of mounted warriors--not like the Greeks and Romans for want of

good military qualities, but for want of an organization which would

have distributed their fighting powers to the best advantage. One has

only to study the battle of Hastings to realize how completely the

infantry masses of the English slipped from the control of their leaders

directly the front ranks became seriously engaged. For many generations

after Hastings there was no attempt to use infantry as the kernel of

armies, still less to organize it as such beforehand. Indeed, except in

the Crusades, where men of high and of low degree alike fought for their

common faith, and in sieges, where cavalry was powerless and the

services of archers and labourers were at a premium, it became quite

unusual for infantry to appear on the field at all.

Bouvines.

The tactics of feudal infantry at its best were conspicuously

illustrated in the battle of Bouvines, where besides the barons,

knights and sergeants, the Brabançon mercenaries (heavy foot) and the

French communal militia opposed one another. On the French right wing,

the opportune arrival of a well-closed mass of cavalry and infantry in

the flank of a loose crowd of men-at-arms which had already been

thoroughly engaged, decided the fight. In the centre, the respective

infantries were in first line, the nobles and knights, with their

sovereigns, in second, yet it was a mixed mass of both that, after a

period of confused fighting, focussed the battle in the persons of the

emperor and the king of France, and if the personal encounters of the

two bodies of knights gave the crowded German infantry a momentary

chance to strike down the king, the latter was soon rescued by a

half-dozen of heavy cavalrymen. On the left wing, the count of

Boulogne made a living castle of his Brabançon pikes, whence with his

men-at-arms he sallied forth from time to time and played the

champion. Lastly, the Constable Montmorency brought over what was

still manageable of the corps that had defeated the cavalry on the

right (nearly all mounted men) and gave the final push to the allied

centre and right in succession. Then the imperial army fled and was

slaughtered without offering much resistance. Of infantry in this

battle there was enough and to spare, but its only opportunities for

decisive action were those afforded by the exhaustion of the armoured

men or by the latter becoming absorbed in their own single combats to

the exclusion of their proper work in the line of battle. As usual the

infantry suffered nine-tenths of the casualties. For all their numbers

and apparent tactical distribution on this field, they were "residue,"

destitute of special organization, training or utility; and the only

suggestion of "combined tactics" is the expedient adopted by the count

of Boulogne, rings of spearmen to serve as pavilions served in the

tournament--to secure a decorous setting for a display of knightly

prowess.

In those days in truth the infantry was no more the army than to-day the

shareholders of a limited company are the board of directors. They were

deeply, sometimes vitally, interested in the result, but they

contributed little or nothing to bringing it about, except when the

opposing cavalries were in a state of moral equilibrium, and in these

cases anything suffices--the appearance of camp followers on a "Gillies

Hill," as at Bannockburn or the sound of half-a-dozen trumpets--to turn

the scale. Once it turned, the infantry of the beaten side was cut down

unresistingly, while the more valuable prisoners were admitted to

ransom. Thereafter, feudal tactics were based principally on the ideas

of personal glory--won in single combat, champion against champion, and

of personal profit--won by the knight in holding a wealthy and

well-armed baron to ransom and by the foot-soldier in plundering while

his masters were fighting. In the French army, the term _bidaux_,

applied in the days of Bouvines to all the infantry other than archers

and arblasters, came by a quite natural process to mean the laggards,

malingerers and skulkers of the army.

Revival of infantry.

But even this infantry contained within itself two half-smothered sparks

of regeneration, the idea of _archery_ and the idea of _communal

militia_. Archery, in whatever form practised, was the one special form

of military activity with which the heavy _gendarme_ (whether he fought

on horseback or dismounted) had no concern. Here therefore infantry had

a special function, and in so far ceased to be "residue." The communal

militia was an early and inadequate expression of the town-spirit that

was soon to produce the solid burgher-militia of Flanders and Germany

and after that the trained bands of the English cities and towns. It

therefore represented the principles of solidarity, of combination, of

duty to one's comrade and to the common cause--principles which had

disappeared from feudal warfare.[1] It was under the influence of these

two ideas or forces that infantry as an arm began once again, though

slowly and painfully, to differentiate itself from the mass of _bidaux_

until in the end the latter practically contained only the worthless

elements.

Courtrai.

The first true infantry battle since Hastings was fought at Courtrai

in 1302, between the burghers of Bruges and a feudal army under Count

Robert of Artois. The citizens, arrayed in heavy masses, and still

armed with miscellaneous weapons, were careful to place themselves on

ground difficult of access--dikes, pools and marshes--and to fasten

themselves together, like the Gauls of old. Their van was driven back

by the French communal infantry and professional crossbowmen,

whereupon Robert of Artois, true feudal leader as he was, ordered his

infantry to clear the way for the cavalry and without even giving them

time to do so pushed through their ranks with a formless mass of

gendarmerie. This, in attempting to close with the enemy, plunged into

the canals and swamped lands, and was soon immovably fastened in the

mud. The citizens swarmed all round it and with spear, cleaver and

flail destroyed it. Robert himself with a party of his gendarmerie

strove to break through the solid wall of spears, but in vain. He was

killed and his army perished with him, for the citizens did not regard

war as a game and ransom as the loser's forfeit. As for the communal

infantry which had won the first success, it had long since

disappeared from the field, for when count Robert ordered his heavy

cavalry forward, they had thought themselves attacked in rear by a

rush of hostile cavalry--as indeed they were, for the gendarmerie rode

them down--and melted away.

Crécy (q.v.) was fought forty-four years after Courtrai. Here the

knights had open ground to fight on, and many boasted that they would

revenge themselves. But they encountered not merely infantry, but

infantry tactics, and were for the second, and not the last, time

destroyed. The English army included a large feudal element, but the

spirit of indiscipline had been crushed by a series of iron-handed

kings, and for more than a century the nobles, in so far as they had

been bad subjects, had been good Englishmen. The English yeomen had

reached a level of self-discipline and self-respect which few even of

the great continental cities had attained. They had, lastly, made the

powerful long-bow (see ARCHERY) their own, and Edward I. had _combined_

the shock of the heavy cavalry with the slow searching preparatory rain

of arrows (see FALKIRK). That is, infantry tactics and cavalry tactics

were co-ordinated by a _general_, and the special point of this for the

present purpose is that instead of being, as in France, the unstable

base of the so-called "feudal pyramid," infantry has become an _arm_,

capable of offence and defence and having its own special organization,

function in the line of battle and tactical method. This last, indeed,

like every other tactical method, rested ultimately on the _moral_ of

the men who had to put it into execution. Archer tactics did not serve

against the disciplined rush of Joan of Arc's gendarmerie, for the

solidarity of the archer companies that tried to stop it had long been

undermined.

The English archer.

Yet we cannot overrate the importance of the archer in this period of

military history. In the city militias solidarity had been obtained

through the close personal relationship of the trade gilds and by the

elimination of the champion. Therefore, as every offensive in war rests

upon boldness, these militias were essentially defensive, for they could

only hope to ward off the feudal champion, not to outfight him (Battle

of Legnano, 1176. See Oman, p. 442). England, however, had evolved a

weapon which no armour could resist, and a race of men as fully trained

to use it as the gendarme was to use the lance.[2] This weapon gave them

the power of killing without being killed, which the citizens' spears

and maces and voulges did not. But like all missiles, arrows were a poor

stand-by in the last resort if determined cavalry crossed the "beaten

zone" and closed in, and besides pavises and pointed stakes the English

archers were given the support of the knights, nobles and sergeants--the

armoured champions--whose steady lances guaranteed their safety. Here

was the real forward stride in infantry tactics. Archery had existed

from time immemorial, and a mere technical improvement in its weapon

could hardly account for its suddenly becoming the queen of the

battlefield. The defensive power of the "dark impenetrable wood" of

spears had been demonstrated again and again, but when the cavalry had

few or no preliminary difficulties to face, the chances of the infantry

mass resisting long-continued pressure was small. It was the combination

of the two elements that made possible a Crécy and a Poitiers, and this

combination was the result of the English social system which produced

the _camaraderie_ of knight and yeoman, champion and plain soldier.

Fortified by the knight's unshakeable steadiness, the yeoman handled his

bow and arrows with cool certainty and rapidity, and shot down every

rush of the opposing champions. This was _camaraderie de combat_ indeed,

and in such conditions the offensive was possible and even easy. The

English conquered whole countries while the Flemish and German spearmen

and vougiers merely held their own. For them, decisive victories were

only possible when the enemy played into their hands, but for the

English the guarantee of such victories was the specific character of

their army itself and the tactical methods resulting from and expressing

that character.

The Hundred Years' War.

But the war of conquest embodied in these decisive victories dwindled in

its later stages to a war of raids. The feudal lord, like the feudal

vassal, returned home and gave place to the professional man-at-arms and

the professional captain. Ransom became again the chief object, and

except where a great leader, such as Bertrand Du Guesclin, compelled the

mercenaries to follow him to death or victory, a battle usually became a

mêlée of irregular duels between men-at-arms, with all the selfishness

and little of the chivalry of the purely feudal encounter. The war went

on and on, the gendarmes thickened their armour, and the archers found

more difficulty in penetrating it. Moreover, in raids for devastation

and booty, the slow-moving infantryman was often a source of danger to

his comrades. In this _guerrilla_ the archer, though he kept his place,

soon ceased to be the mainstay of battle. It had become customary since

Crécy (where the English knights and sergeants were dismounted to

protect the archers) for all mounted men to send away their horses

before engaging. Here and there cavalry masses were used by such

energetic leaders as the Black Prince and Du Guesclin, and more often a

few men remained mounted for work requiring exceptional speed and

courage,[3] but as a general rule the man-at-arms was practically a

mounted infantryman, and when he dismounted he stood still. Thus two

masses of dismounted lances, mixed with archers, would meet and engage,

but the archers, the offensive element, were now far too few in

proportion to the lances, the purely defensive element, and battles

became indecisive skirmishes instead of overwhelming victories.

Cavalry therefore became, in a very loose sense of the word, infantry.

But we are tracing the history not of all troops that stood on their

feet to fight, but of infantry and the special tactics of infantry, and

the period before and after 1370, when the moral foundations of the new

English tactics had disappeared, and the personality of Du Guesclin gave

even the bandits of the "free companies" an intrinsic, if slight,

superiority over the invaders, is a period of deadlock. Solidarity, such

as it was, had gone over to the side of the heavy cavalry. But the

latter had deliberately forfeited their power of forcing the decision by

fighting on foot, and the English archer, the cadre of the English

tactical system, though diminished in numbers, prestige and importance,

held to existence and survived the deadlock. Infantry of that type

indeed could never return to the "residue" state, and it only needed a

fresh moral impetus, a Henry V., to set the old machinery to work again

for a third great triumph. But again, after Agincourt, the long war

lapsed into the hands of the soldiers of fortune, the basis of Edward's

and Henry's tactics crumbled, and, led by a greater than Du Guesclin,

the knights and the nobles of France, and the mercenary captains and

men-at-arms as well, _rode down_ the stationary masses of the English,

lances and bowmen alike.

The net result of the Hundred Years' War therefore was to re-establish

the two arms, cavalry and infantry, side by side, the one acting by

shock, and the other by fire. The lesson of Crécy was "prepare your

charge before delivering it," and for that purpose great bodies of

infantry armed with bows, arblasts and handguns were brought into

existence in France. When the French king in 1448 put into force the

"lessons of the war" and organized a permanent army, it consisted in the

main of heavy cavalry (knights and squires in the "ordonnance"

companies, soldiers of fortune in the paid companies) and archers and

arblasters (_francs-archers_ recruited nationally, arblasters as a rule

mercenaries, though largely recruited in Gascony). To these _armes de

jet_ were added, in ever-increasing numbers, hand firearms. Thus the

"fire" principle of attack was established, and the defensive principle

of "mass" relegated to the background. In such circumstances cavalry was

of course the decisive arm, and the reputation of the French gendarmerie

was such as to justify this bold elimination of the means of passive

defence.[4]

Burgher militias.

The foot-soldier of Germany and the Low Countries had followed a very

different line of development. Here the rich commercial cities scarcely

concerned themselves with the quarrels or revolts of neighbouring

nobles, but they resolutely defended their own rights against feudal

interference, and enforced them by an organized militia, opposing the

strict solidarity of their own institutions to the prowess of the

champion who threatened them. The struggle was between "you shall" on

the part of the baron and "we will not" on the part of the citizens, the

offensive _versus_ the defensive in the simplest and plainest form. The

latter was a policy of unbreakable squares, and wherever possible,

strong positions as well. Sometimes the citizens, sometimes the nobles

gained the day, but the general result was that steady infantry in

proper formation could not be ridden down, and as yeomen-archers of the

English type to "prepare" the charge were not obtainable from amongst

the serf populations of the countryside, the problem of the attack was,

for Central Europe, insoluble.

The Wagenburg.

The unbreakable square took two forms, the _wagenburg_ with artillery,

and the infantry mass with pikes. The first was no more, in the

beginning, than an expedient for the safe and rapid crossing of wider

stretches of open country than would have been possible for dismounted

men, whom the cavalry headed off as soon as they ventured far enough

from the shelter of walls. The men rode not on horses but on carriages,

and the carriages moved over the plains in laager formation, the

infantrymen standing ready with halbert and voulge or short stabbing

spear, and the gunners crouching around the long barrelled two-pounders

and the "ribaudequins"--the early machine guns--which were mounted on

the wagons. These _wagenburgen_ combined in themselves the due

proportions of mobility and passive defence, and in the skilled hands of

Ziska they were capable of the boldest offensive. But such a tactical

system depended first of all on drill, for the armoured cavalry would

have crowded through the least gap in the wagon line, and the necessary

degree of drill in those days could only be attained by an army which

had both a permanent existence and some bond of solidarity more powerful

than the incentive to plunder--that is, in practice, it was only

attained in full by the Hussite insurgents. The cavalry, too, learned

its lesson, and pitted mobile three-pounders against the foot-soldiers'

one- and two-pounders, and the _wagenburg_ became no more than a

helpless target. Thus when, not many years after the end of the Hussite

wars, the Wars of the Roses eliminated the English model and the English

tactics from the military world of Europe, the French system of fire

tactics--masses of archers, arblasters and handgun-men, with some

spearmen and halberdiers to stiffen them--was left face to face with

that of the Swiss and Landsknechts, the system of the "long pike."

The Swiss.

A series of victories ranging from Morgarten (1315) to Nancy (1477)

had made the Swiss the most renowned infantry in Europe. Originally

their struggles with would-be oppressors had taken the form, often

seen elsewhere, of arraying solid masses of men, united in purpose and

fidelity to one another rather than by any material or tactical

cohesion. Like the men of Bruges at Courtrai, the Swiss had the

advantage of broken ground, and the still greater advantage of being

opposed by reckless feudal cavalry. Their armament at this stage was

not peculiar--voulges, gisarmes, halberts and spears--though they were

specially adept in the use of the two-handed sword. But as time went

on the long pike (said to have originated in Savoy or the Milanese

about 1330) became more and more popular until at last on the verge of

their brief ascendancy (about 1475-1515) the Swiss armed as much as

one quarter of their troops with it. The use of firearms made little

or no progress amongst them, and the Swiss mercenaries of 1480, like

their forerunners of Morgarten and Sempach, fought with the _arme

blanche_ alone. But in a very few years after the Swiss nation had

become soldiers of fortune _en masse_, the more open lands of Swabia

entered into serious and bitter competition with them. From these

lands came the Landsknechts, whose order was as strong as, and far

less unwieldy than, that of the Swiss, whose armament included a far

greater proportion of firearms, and who established a regimental

system that left a permanent mark on army organization. The

Landsknecht was the prototype of the infantryman of the 16th and 17th

centuries, but his right to indicate the line of evolution had to be

wrung from many rivals.

The long pike.

The year 1480 indeed was a turning-point in military history. Within the

three years preceding it the battles of Nancy and Guinegate had

destroyed both the old feudalism of Charles the Bold and the new cavalry

tactics of the French gendarmerie. The former was an anachronism, while

the latter, when the great wars came to an end and there was no longer

either a national impulse or a national leader, had lapsed into the old

vices of ransom and plunder. With these, on the same fields, the

_franc-archer_ system of infantry tactics perished ignominiously. It

rested, as we know, on the principle that the fire of the infantry was

to be combined with and completed by the shock of the gendarmerie, and

when the latter were found wanting as at Guinegate, the masses of

archers and arblasters, which were only feebly supported by a few

handfuls of pikemen and halberdiers, were swept away by the charge of

some heavy battalions of Swabian and Flemish pikes. Guinegate was the

_début_ of the Landsknecht infantry as Nancy was that of the Swiss, and

the lesson could not be misread. Louis XI. indeed hanged some of his

_franc-archers_ and dismissed the rest, and in their place raised

"bands" of regular infantry, one of which bore for the first time the

historic name of _Picardie_. But these "bands" were not self-contained.

Armed for the most part with _armes de jet_ they centred on the 6000

Swiss pikemen whom Louis XI., in 1480, took into his service, and for

nearly fifty years thereafter the French foot armies are always composed

of two elements, the huge battalions of Swiss or Landsknechts,[5] armed

exclusively with the long pike (except for an ever-decreasing proportion

of halberts, and a few arquebuses), and for their support and

assistance, French and mercenary "bands."

The Italian wars of 1494-1544, in which the principles of fire and shock

were readjusted to meet the conditions created by firearms, were the

nursery of modern infantry. The combinations of Swiss, Landsknechts,

Spanish "tercios" and French "bands" that figured on the battlefields of

the early 16th century were infinitely various. But it is not difficult

to find a thread that runs through the whole.

The Italian Wars, 1494-1525.

The essence of the Swiss system was solidity. They arrayed themselves in

huge oblongs of 5000 men and more, at the corners of which, like the

tower bastions of a 16th-century fortress, stood small groups of

arquebusiers. The Landsknechts and the Romagnols of Italy, imitated and

rivalled them, though as a rule developing more front and less depth. At

this stage solidity was everything and fire-power nothing. At Fornuovo

(1495) the mass of arquebusiers and arblasters in the French army did

little or nothing; it was the Swiss who were _l'espérance de l'ost_. At

Agnadello or Vailá in 1509 the ground and the "encounter-battle"

character of the engagement gave special chances of effective employment

to the arquebusiers on either side. Along the front the Venetian

marksmen, secure behind a bank, picked off the leaders of the enemy as

they came near. On the outer flank of the battle the bands of Gascon

arquebusiers, which would otherwise have been relegated to an

unimportant place in the general line of battle, lapped round the

enemy's flank in broken ground and produced great and almost decisive

effect. But this was only an afterthought of the king of France and

Bayard. In the rest of the battle the huge masses of Swiss pikes were

thrown upon the enemy much as the old feudal cavalry had been,

regardless of ditches, orchards and vineyards.

Then for a moment the problem was solved, or partially solved, by the

artillery. From Germany the material, though not--at least to the same

extent--the principle, of the _wagenburg_ penetrated, in the first years

of the 16th century, to Italy and thence to France. Thus by degrees a

very numerous and exceedingly handy light artillery--"carts with

gonnes," as they were called in England--came into play on the Italian

battlefields, and took over from the dying _franc-archer_ system the

work of preparing the assault by fire. For mere skirmishing the Swiss

and Landsknechts had arquebusiers enough, without needing to call on the

masses of Gascons, &c., and _pari passu_ with the development of this

artillery, the "bands," other than Swiss and Landsknechts, began to

improve themselves into pikemen and halberdiers. At Ravenna (1512) the

bands of Gascony and Picardy, as well as the French _aventuriers_ (the

"bands of Piedmont," afterwards the second senior regiment of the French

line) fought in the line of battle shoulder to shoulder with the

Landsknechts. On this day the fire action of the new artillery was

extraordinarily murderous, ploughing lanes in the immobile masses of

infantry. At Marignan the French gendarmerie and artillery, closely and

skilfully combined, practically destroyed the huge masses of the Swiss,

and so completely had "infantry" and "fire" become separate ideas that

on the third day of this tremendous battle we find even the "bands of

Piedmont" cutting their way into the Swiss masses.

The Spanish infantry and the arquebus.

But from this point the lead fell into the hands of the Spaniards. These

were originally swift and handy light infantry, capable--like the

Scottish Highlanders at Prestonpans and Falkirk long afterwards--of

sliding under the forest of pikes and breaking into the close-locked

ranks with buckler and stabbing sword. For troops of this sort the

arquebus was an ideal weapon, and the problem of self-contained infantry

was solved by Gonsalvo de Cordoba, Pescara and the great Spanish

captains of the day by intercalating small closed bodies of arquebusiers

with rather larger, but not inordinately large, bodies of pikes. These

arquebusiers formed separate, fully organized sections of the infantry

regiment. In close defence they fought on the front and flanks of the

pikes, but more usually they were pushed well to the front

independently, their speed and excellent fire discipline enabling them

to do what was wholly beyond the power of the older type of firing

infantry--to take advantage of ground, to run out and reopen fire during

a momentary pause in the battle of lance and pike, and to run back to

the shelter of their own closed masses when threatened by an oncoming

charge. When this system of tactics was consecrated by the glorious

success of Pavia (1525), the "cart with gonnes" vanished and the system

of fighting everywhere and always "at push of pike" fell into the

background.

16th Century-tactics.

The lessons of Pavia can be read in Francis I.'s instructions to his

newly formed Provincial (militia) Legions in 1534 and in the battle of

Cerisoles ten years later. The "legion" was ordered to be composed of

six "bands"--battalions we should call them now, but in those days the

term "battalion" was consecrated to a gigantic square of the Swiss

type--each of 800 pikes (including a few halberts) and 200

arquebusiers. The pikes, 4800 strong, of each legion were grouped in

one large battalion, and covered on the front and flanks by the 1200

arquebuses, the latter working in small and handy squads. These

"legions" did not of course count as good troops, but their

organization and equipment, designed deliberately in peace time, and

not affected by the coming and going of soldiers of fortune, represent

therefore the theoretically perfect type for the 16th century.

Cerisoles represents the system in practice, with veteran regular

troops. On the side of the French most of the arquebuses were grouped

on the right wing, in a long irregular line of companies or strong

squads, supported at a moderate distance by companies or small

battalions of "corselets" (pikes of the French bands of Picardy and

Piedmont); the rest of the line of battle was composed of

Landsknechts, &c., similarly arrayed, except that the arquebusiers

were on the flanks and immediate front of the "corselets" and behind

the arquebuses and corselets of the right wing came a Swiss monster of

the old type. On the imperial side of the Landsknechts, Spanish and

Italian infantry were drawn up in seven or eight battalions, each with

its due proportion of pikes and "shot." The course of the battle

demonstrated both the active tactical power of the new form of

fire-action and the solidity of the pike nucleus, the former in the

attack and defence of hills, woods and localities, the latter in an

episode in which a Spanish battalion, after being ridden through from

corner to corner by the French gendarmes, continued on its way almost

unchecked and quite unbroken. This combination of arquebusiers

supported by corselets in first line and corselets with a few

arquebusiers in second, reappeared at Renty (1554), and St Quentin

(1557), and was in fact the typical disposition of infantry from about

1530 to 1600.

By 1550, then, infantry had entirely ceased to be an auxiliary arm. It

contained within itself, and (what is more important) within its

regimental units, the power of fighting effectively and decisively both

at close quarters and at a distance--the principal characteristic of the

arm to-day. It had, further, developed a permanent regimental existence,

both in Spain and in France, and in the former country it had progressed

so far from the "residue" state that young nobles preferred to trail a

pike in the ranks of the foot to service in the gendarmerie or light

horse. The service battalions were kept up to war strength by the

establishment of depots and the preliminary training there of recruits.

In France, apart from Picardie and the other old regiments, every

temporary regiment, on disbandment, threw off a depot company of the

best soldiers, on which nucleus the regiment was reconstituted for the

next campaign. Moreover, the permanent establishment was augmented from

time to time by the colonel-general of the foot "giving his white flag"

to temporary regiments.

The French infantry in 1570.

The organization of the French infantry in 1570 presents some points

of interest. The former broad classification of _au delà_ and _en deça

des monts_ or "Picardie" and "Piedmont," representing the home and

Italian armies, had disappeared, and instead the whole of the

infantry, under one colonel-general, was divided into the regiments of

Picardie, Piedmont and French Guards, each of which had its own

colonel and its own colours. Besides these, three newer corps were

_entretenus par le Roy_--"Champagne," practically belonging to the

Guise[6] family, and two others formed out of the once enormous

regiment of Marshal de Cossé-Brissac. At the end of a campaign all

temporary regiments were disbanded, but in imitation of the Spanish

depot system, each, on disbandment, threw off a depot company of

picked men who formed the nucleus for the next year's augmentation.

The regiment consisted of 10-16 "ensigns" or companies, each of about

150 pikemen and 50 arquebusiers. Each company had a proprietary

captain, the owners of the first two companies being the

colonel-general and the colonel (_mestre de camp_). The senior captain

was called the sergeant-major, and performed the duties of a second in

command and an adjutant or brigade-major. Unlike the regimental

commander, the sergeant-major was always mounted, and it is recorded

that one officer newly appointed to the post incurred the ridicule of

the army by dismounting to speak to the king. "Some veteran officers,"

wrote a contemporary, "are inclined to think that the regimental

commander should be mounted as well as the sergeant-major." The

regiment was as a rule formed for parade and battle either in line 10

deep or in "battalion" (i.e. mass), Swiss fashion. The captain

occupied the front, the ensigns with the company colours the centre,

and the lieutenants the rear place in the file. The sergeants, armed

with the halbert, marched on each side of the battalion or company.

Though the musket was gradually being introduced, and had powerful

advocates in Marshal Strozzi and the duke of Guise, the bulk of the

"shot" still carried the arquebus, the calibre of which had been,

thanks to Strozzi's efforts, standardized (see CALIVER) so that all

the arms took the same sizes of ball. The pikeman had half-armour and

a 14-ft. pike, the arquebusier beside the firearm a sword which he was

trained to use in the manner of the former Spanish light infantry. The

arquebusiers were arrayed in 3 ranks in front of the pikes or in 10

deep files on either flank.

The wars in which this system was evolved were wars for prestige and

aggrandizement. They were waged, therefore, by mercenary soldiers, whose

main object was to live, and who were officered either by men of their

own stamp, or by nobles eager to win military glory. But the Wars of

Religion raised questions of life and death for the Frenchmen of either

faith, and such public opinion as there was influenced the method of

operations so far that a decision and not a prolongation of the struggle

began to be the desired end of operations. Hence in those wars the

relatively immobile "battalion" of pikes diminishes in importance and

the arquebusiers and musketeers grow more and more efficient. Armies,

too, became smaller, and marched more rapidly. Encounter-battles became

more frequent than "pitched" battles, and in these the musketeer was at

a great advantage. Thus by 1600 the proportions between pikes and

musketeers in the French army had come to be 6 pikes to 4 muskets or

arquebuses, and the _bataillon de combat_ or brigade was normally no

more than 1200 strong. In the Netherlands, however, the war of

consciences was fought out between the best regular army in the world

and burgher militias. Even the French _fantassins_ were second in

importance to the Spanish _soldados_. The latter continued to hold the

pre-eminent position they had gained at Pavia.[7] They improved the

arquebus into the musket, a heavier and much more powerful weapon (fired

from a rest) which could disable a horse at 500 paces.

Alva.

At this moment the professional soldier was at the high-water mark of

his supremacy. The musket was too complicated to be rapidly and

efficiently used by any but a highly trained man; the pike, probably

because it had now to protect two or three ranks of "shot" in front of

the leading rank of pikemen, as well as the pikemen themselves, had

grown longer (up to 18 ft.); and drill and manoeuvre had become more

important than ever, for in the meantime cavalry had mostly abandoned

the massive armour and the long lance in favour of half-armour and the

pistol, and their new tactics made them both swifter to charge groups of

musketeers and more deadly to the solid masses of pikemen. This

superiority of the regular over the irregular was most conspicuously

shown in Alva's war against the Netherlands patriots. Desperately as the

latter fought, Spanish captains did not hesitate to attack patriot

armies ten times their own strength. If once or twice this contempt led

them to disaster, as at Heiligerlee in 1568 (though here, after all,

Louis of Nassau's army was chiefly composed of trained mercenaries), the

normal battle was of the Jemmingen type--seven _soldados_ dead and seven

thousand rebels.

Infantry in 1600.

As regards battles in the open field, such results as these naturally

confirmed the "Spanish system" of tactics. The Dutch themselves, when

they evolved reliable field armies, copied it with few modifications,

and by degrees it was spread over Europe by the professional soldiers on

both sides. There was plenty of discussion and readjustment of details.

For example, the French, with their smaller battalions and more rapid

movements, were inclined to disparage both the cuirass and the pike, and

only unwillingly hampered themselves with the long heavy Spanish musket,

which had to be fired from a rest. In 1600, nearly fifty years after the

introduction of the musket, this most progressive army still

deliberately preferred the old light arquebus, and only armed a few

selected men with the larger weapons. On the other hand, the Spaniards,

though supreme in the open, had for the most part to deal with desperate

men behind fortifications. Fighting, therefore, chiefly at close

quarters with a fierce enemy, and not disposing either of the space or

of the opportunity for "manoeuvre-battles," they sacrificed all their

former lightness and speed, and clung to armour, the long pike and the

heavy 2½ oz. bullet. But the principles first put into practice by

Gonsalvo de Cordoba, the combination, in the proportions required in

each case, of _fire_ and _shock_ elements in every body of organized

infantry however small, were maintained in full vigour, and by now the

superiority of the infantry arm in method, discipline and technique,

which had long before made the Spanish nobles proud to trail a pike in

the ranks, began to impress itself on other nations. The relative value

of horse and foot became a subject for expert discussion instead of an

axiom of class pride. The question of cavalry _versus_ infantry, hotly

disputed in all ages, is a matter affecting general tactics, and does

not come within the scope of the present article (see further CAVALRY).

Expert opinion indeed was still on the side of the horsemen. It was on

their cavalry, with its speed, its swords and its pistols that the

armies of the 16th century relied in the main to produce the decision in

battle. Sir Francis Vane, speaking of the battle of Nieupoort in 1600,

says, "Whereas most commonly in battles the success of the foot

dependeth on that of the horse, here it was clean contrary, for so long

as the foot held good the horse could not be beaten out of the field."

The "success" of the foot in Vane's eyes is clearly resistance to

disintegration rather than ability to strike a decisive blow.

[Illustration: PLATE I.

DREUX--1562.

(_From Hardÿ de Périni's Batailles Françaises, by permission._)

LÜTZEN--1632.]

[Illustration: PLATE II.

PRUSSIAN VOLLEYS, 1740. EVOLUTIONS OF THE COLUMN AND SKIRMISHERS.

WELLINGTON.

VIONVILLE DE CISSEY'S COUNTER-ATTACK (SEEN FROM REAR OF PRUSSIAN 38th

BRIGADE).

APPROACH-MARCH UNDER ARTILLERY FIRE, FRENCH PRINCIPLES (FROM ENEMY'S

ARTILLERY POSITION).

(_From Revue d'Infanterie, 1909._)]

It must be remembered, however, that Vane is speaking of the Low

Countries, and that in France at any rate the solidity which saved the

day at Nieupoort was less appreciated than the _élan_ which had won so

many smart engagements in the Wars of Religion. Moreover, it was the

_offensive_, the decision-compelling faculty of the foot that steadily

developed during the 17th century. To this, little by little, the powers

of passive resistance to which Vane did homage, valuable as they were,

were sacrificed, until at last the long pike disappeared altogether and

the firearm, provided with a bayonet, was the uniform weapon of the

foot-soldier. This stage of infantry history covers almost exactly a

century. As far as France was concerned, it was a natural evolution. But

the acceptance of the principle by the rest of the military world,

imposed by the genius of Gustavus Adolphus, was rather revolution than

evolution.

Gustavus Adolphus.

In the army which Louis XIII. led against his revolted barons of Anjou

in 1620, the old regiments (_les vieux_--Picardie, Piedmont, &c.) seem

to have marched in an open chequer-wise formation of companies which is

interesting not only as a deliberate imitation of the Roman legion (all

soldiers of that time, in the prevailing confusion of tactical ideas,

sought guidance in the works of Xenophon, Aelian and Vegetius), but as

showing that flexibility and handiness was not the monopoly of the

Swedish system that was soon to captivate military Europe. The

formations themselves are indeed found in the Spanish and Dutch armies,

but the equipment of the men, and the general character of the

operations in which they were engaged, probably failed to show off the

advantages of this articulation, for the generals of the Thirty Years'

War, trained in this school, formed their infantry into large battalions

(generally a single line of masses). Experience certainly gave the

troops that used these unwieldy formations a relatively high manoeuvring

capacity, for Tilly's army at Breitenfeld (1631) "changed front

half-left" in the course of the battle itself. But the manoeuvring power

of the Swedes was higher still. Each party represented one side of the

classical revival, the Swedes the Roman three-line manipular tactics,

the Imperialists and Leaguers those of the Greek line of phalanxes. The

former, depending as it did on high _moral_ in the individual

foot-soldier, was hardly suitable to such a congeries of mercenaries as

those that Wallenstein commanded, and later in the Thirty Years' War,

when the old native Swedish and Scottish brigades had been annihilated,

the Swedish infantry was little if at all better than the rest.

But its tactical system, sanctified by victory, was eagerly caught up by

military Europe. The musket, though it had finally driven out the

arquebus, had been lightened by Gustavus Adolphus so far that it could

be fired without a rest. Rapidity in loading had so far improved that a

company could safely be formed six deep instead of ten, as in the

Spanish and Dutch systems. Its fire power was further augmented by the

addition of two very light field-guns to each battalion; these could

inflict loss at twice the effective range of the shortened musket. Above

all, Gustavus introduced into the military systems of Europe a new

discipline based on the idea of exact performance of duty, which made

itself felt in every part of the service, and was a welcome substitute

for the former easy-going methods of regimental existence.[8] The

adoption of Swedish methods indeed was facilitated by the disrepute into

which the older systems had fallen. Men were beginning to see that

armies raised by contract for a few months' work possessed inherent

vices that made it impossible to rely upon them in small things. Courage

the mercenary certainly possessed, but his individual sense of honour,

code of soldierly morals, and sometimes devotion to a particular leader

did not compensate for the absence of a strong motive for victory and

for his general refractoriness in matters of detail, such as

march-discipline and punctuality, which had become essential since the

great Swedish king had reintroduced order, method and definiteness of

purpose into the conduct of military operations. In the old-fashioned

masses, moreover, individual weaknesses, both moral and physical,

counted for little or were suppressed in the general soldierly feeling

of the whole body. But the six-deep line used by Gustavus demanded more

devotion and exact obedience in the individual and a more uniform method

of drill and handling arms. So shallow an order was not strong enough,

under any other conditions, to resist the shock of cavalry or even of

pikemen. Indeed, had not the cavalry (who, after Gustavus's death, were

uninspired mercenaries like the rest) ceased to charge home in the

fashion that Gustavus exacted of them, it is possible that the

new-fashioned line would not have stood the test, and that infantry

would have reverted to the early 16th-century type.

The Great Rebellion.

The problem of combining the maximum of fire power with the maximum of

control over the individual firer was not fully solved until 1740, but

the necessity of attempting the problem was realised from the first. In

the Swedish army, before it was corrupted by the atmosphere of the

Thirty Years' War, duty to God and to country were the springs of the

punctual discipline, in small things and in great, which made it the

most formidable army, unit for unit, in the world. In the English Civil

War (in which the adherents of the "Swedish system" from the first

ousted those of the "Dutch") the difficulty was more acute, for although

the mainsprings of action were similar, the technical side of the

soldier's business--the regimental organization, drill and handling of

arms--had all to be improvised. Now in the beginning the Royalist

cavalry was recruited from "gentlemen that have honour and courage and

resolution"; later, Cromwell raised a cavalry force that was even more

thoroughly imbued with the spirit of duty, "men who made some conscience

of what they did," and throughout the Civil War, consequently, the

mounted arm was the queen of the battlefield.

The Parliamentary foot too "made some conscience of what it did," more

especially in the first years of the war. But its best elements--the

drilled townsmen--were rather of a defensive than of an offensive

character, and towards the close of the struggle, when the foot on both

sides came to be formed of professional soldiers, the defensive element

decreased, as it had decreased in France and elsewhere. The war was like

Gustavus's German campaign, one of rapid and far-ranging marches, and

the armoured pikeman had either to shorten his pike and to cast off his

armour or to be left at home with the heavy artillery (see Firth's

_Cromwell's Army_, ch. iv.). Fights "at push of pike" were rare enough

to be specially mentioned in reports of battles. Sir James Turner says

that in 1657, when he was commissioned with others to raise regiments

for the king of Denmark, "those of the Privy Council would not suffer

one word to be mentioned of a pike in our Commissions." It was the same

with armour. In 1658 Lockhart, the commander of the English contingent

in France, specially asked for a supply of cuirasses and headpieces for

his pikemen in order to impress his allies. In 1671 Sir James Turner

says, "When we see battalions of pikes, we see them everywhere naked

unless it be in the Netherlands." But a small proportion of pikes was

still held to be necessary by experienced soldiers, for as yet the

socket bayonet had not been invented, and there was still cavalry in

Europe that could be trusted to ride home.

Disuse of the pike.

While such cavalry existed, the development of fire power was everywhere

hindered by the necessity of self-defence. On the other hand the

hitherto accepted defensive means militated against efficiency in many

ways, and about 1670, when Louis XIV. and Louvois were fashioning the

new standing army that was for fifty years the model for Europe, the

problem was how to improve the drill and efficiency of the musketeers so

far that the pikes could be reduced to a minimum. In 1680 the firelock

was issued instead of the matchlock to all grenadiers and to the four

best shots in each French Company. The bayonet--in its primitive form

merely a dagger that was fixed into the muzzle of the musket--was also

introduced, and the pike was shortened. The proportion of pikes to

muskets in Henry IV.'s day, 2 to 1 or 3 to 2, and in Gustavus's 2 to 3,

had now fallen to 1 to 3.