This fact can be proved from a comparison of marriages, births and
baptisms; but since the statistics on these subjects are defective,
the better testimony is to be derived from the number of deposits at
the foundling hospitals. The foundling of the house of Misericordia in
Lisbon, that of the Real Casapin in Belem and the foundling at Oporto
together receive nearly five thousand foundlings during the year, of
whom two-thirds[11] perish in the establishments, which thus become
"charnels and houses of woe." Almost every town or village in the
kingdom has its _roda dos expostos_--literally, a "wheel for exposed
ones"--where, upon the ringing of a bell, the children deposited in
a turning-basket or wheel are passed into the interior of the
establishment without inquiry. Although their term of stay is limited
to a few weeks, less than one-half of them ever pass out of the
establishment alive! Says Dr. T. de Carvalho: "The _roda_ is the
_açouque_ ('slaughter-house') for children. It is the permanent and
legal means of infanticide. _Abaixo a roda dos expostos!_"

Notwithstanding this frightful mortality, the number of infants always
on hand in the foundlings of Portugal is nearly 40,000, or 1 per cent
of the entire population. One-eighth of all the reported births in the
kingdom become foundlings: as for the non-reported ones, their fate
is known only to the recording angel. Says Claudio Adriano da Costa:
"Promiscuous intercourse has become common all over the country;"
and he attributes it, though I think superficially, to the "misplaced
indulgence to concubinage awarded by the rodas."[12]

[Footnote 11: During the thirteen years from 1840-52 the number of
children deposited in the Oporto foundling was 15,608, of whom no less
than 11,310, or 72.4 per cent.--_nearly three-fourths_--died while in
the hospital. Most of the remainder died during infancy after leaving