child in its tenderest feelings;—­but these are not the forms of cruelty and wrong which fall within reach of the law.  It is unable to interpose between the parents and the child, except in case of an actual and serious offence, and for the rest it must rely upon the affection planted by nature in the hearts of parents.  These distinctions are more felt than expressed, and opinion will never deceive itself in regard to the conduct of unnatural parents.

But if these propositions are absolutely incontestable, how do they leave room for the function of a society?  If children are beaten, abandoned, given over to odious practices, will not the authorities, on the complaint of those interested, or compelled by public opinion, be able adequately to fulfil the task?  This reasoning, altogether French, would not properly take into account the American temperament, the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race, of its institutions, and of its usages.  In France, since the fourteenth century, misdemeanors have been prosecuted the more generally by the public minister, acting under whose orders are numerous officers of judiciary police, who entertain the complaints of the public and send them, with the result of their examination, to our courts.  The magistrates charged with the case complete the investigations, if they take place.  The elements of the evidence are therefore combined when the prosecution is instituted.  In the United States these intermediate officials exist but imperfectly between the injured party and the magistrate who renders judgment.  From lack of sufficient evidence, the rights of this injured party run the risk of being compromised through his inexperience.  Moreover, the complaint of the child, often directed against its parents or its legal guardians, involves the examination of a delicate situation, which must be conducted with much discernment.  Without comparing the two systems, American and French, which correspond each to the particular genius of the two nations, it will be seen that the American system leaves much more to private initiative, and that it would become ineffectual when the victim of the offence, being a child, has neither the energy nor the knowledge necessary to demonstrate that its complaint is well founded, without the aid of some one in power.  This is the aid which is given by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children; and we can now understand how the exigency of the case, so powerfully felt by the practical intelligence of the Americans, has called into existence this potent organization, which we may call the guardian of the rights of childhood, for the repression of the offences from which it is liable to suffer.  The following anecdote shows how the necessity for this institution arose, in a manner at once thrilling and dramatic:—­