This Serial Killer Disproves Some of Fundies Claim

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It is frustrating to listen to fundies butcher history. Under any Huff Post article dealing with Fluke, there are numerous conservative comments deploring the idea that women might use birth control in order to have guilt free sex(yes, I know that is not what Fluke asked for) Their reasoning is that in times past, fear of pregnancies forced couples to remain chaste until marriage. Family life was great because men respected women who remained in their proper spheres. Of course this isn't true but Fundies don't like to read anything that contradicts their viewpoint.

I have a weird weakness for true crime, especially true crimes committed by women in past time periods. The case of Amelia Dryer goes against what fundies believe not just because she was a female serial killer but because it shows how vulnerable unmarried mothers were in Victorian times.

One thing that fundies misunderstand is that humans are going to have sex. It doesn't matter what the punishment. The recent cases of generals destroying their careers should illustrate that point but our society hasn't become worse. Sex has always been a powerful drive and society hasn't been succesful at forcing people to ignore it.

Evelina and little Doris Marmon had fallen victim to one of the murkiest of all the many social evils in Britain just over a century ago - the "baby farmers".

Infant mortality was high and children's lives were cheap. Many families in straitened circumstances were happy to dispose of an infant to a new home and not ask too many questions about where and to whom it was going.

Some, like Evelina, had every intention of retrieving their youngsters.

Others were just glad to see the back of them - one less mouth to feed, one less burden in the struggle to survive.

They were prey to the unscrupulous, the immoral and the murderous, and none was quite as chillingly evil as the "caring woman" to whom Doris had just been entrusted.

"Mrs Harding" was one of the many aliases of Amelia Dyer, a hardfaced brute of a woman, whose crimes are recalled in a new book.

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in her own home for young women who, in an unforgiving age, were pregnant outside of wedlock.

From the moment their bump began to show they were shunned by polite society or sacked if they were in work.

So for a fee, unscrupulous businesses offered to take in these young women and see them through to the birth. After the mothers left, their unwanted babies would be looked after as "nurse children".

The money differed. If the girl was from a well-off background with parents anxious to keep her plight secret, it might be as much as £80.

Or, say, £50 if the father of the child was prepared to contribute in order to hush up his involvement.

But more often these were impoverished girls, whose "immorality" meant even the workhouse wouldn't take them, and for them the deal might be done for a fiver.

To cut costs, the farmed-out babies were starved, and to reduce the aggravation of looking after them they were sedated with easily-available alcohol and opiates.

Godfrey's Cordial, a syrup laced with laudanum and known colloquially as "The Quietness", was a favourite to put a child fast asleep. And if the child died, so be it. Most did, sooner or later.

One such establishment was described with horror by a police officer who uncovered it in Brixton, London.

In one room, five three and four-week-old infants were lying in filth, three under a shawl on a sofa and two stuffed into a small crib.

They were ashen-faced and emaciated like miniature crones, their bones visible through transparent skin.

They lay open-mouthed, in a state of torpor, eyes glazed, scarcely human. What chilled the policeman was the silence: "Instead of the noises to be expected from children of tender age, they were lying without a moan from their wretched lips, and apparently dying."

Five infants were in another room, in slightly better condition because a weekly fee was still being exacted for them instead of the single "premium" that had been paid for the ones encouraged to die quickly.

However immoral this business - and the immorality usually stretched to those who deposited children there, in full realisation of their fate - it was one much in demand, and lucrative. There was a pile of cash to be made here, as Amelia Dyer realised.

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dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-484575/The-baby-butcher-One-Victorian-Britains-evil-murderers-exposed.html

Yeah, I know that the article is from the Daily Mail and I'm sorry about that. However, it does illustrate that life was not pleasant for illegitimate children in times past. What fundies want to force society back to is a time period in which children suffer for impossible ideals.