But there is yet another question which may, and in truth frequently does occur; where either a pretended pregnancy is followed by the grosser fraud of imposing a strange child upon the husband, either for the purpose of fixing his affection, or securing his estate; or where a living and healthy child is substituted for one either dead, or too sickly to give reasonable hope of prolonged existence. To this crime our laws assign no specific punishment; the parties can only be indicted for a conspiracy as they might have been for any ordinary misdemeanor; the real punishment falls on the unconscious instrument of the wrong,^[342] the child, who having been educated in every indulgence that affection and affluence could bestow, finds itself on the exposure of a vindictive menial, without name, hope, or fortune; abandoned by its assumed, it may be unable to trace its real parents, yet the authors of this irreparable wrong have generally escaped even the inadequate punishment to which their crime had subjected them. Those who are curious to inform themselves of the doubts and difficulties with which such questions are entangled, will do well to consult the proceedings in the celebrated Douglas case,^[343] than which few have ever excited so much difference of opinion on the bench, or so much intensity of interest in the public mind. The Anglesea case also, with the several trials connected with it,^[344] is well worthy of perusal by those whom interest or curiosity may lead to this species of investigation.

We should not have alluded to personal resemblance^[345] between parents and children, as a mode of proof in these cases, first, as we have doubted whether such proof can be satisfactory, and secondly, as it may not be considered a point of medical evidence; but as to our first doubt, we find that so high an authority as Lord Mansfield thought that a family likeness was a material proof that a child was the genuine offspring of the parents through whom he claimed. His lordship in delivering his judgment in the House of Lords on the Douglas cause, is reported to have said, “I have always considered likeness as an argument of a child’s being the son of a parent; and the rather, as the distinction between individuals in the human species is more discernible than other animals^[346]: a man may survey ten thousand people before he sees two faces perfectly alike; and in an army of a hundred thousand men every one may be known from another. If there should be a likeness of feature, there may be a discriminancy of voice, a difference in the gesture, the smile, and various other characters; whereas a family likeness runs generally through all these, for in every thing there is a resemblance, as of features, size, attitude, and action. And here it is a question, whether the appellant most resembled his father Sir John, or the younger Sholto resembled his mother Lady Jane? Many witnesses have sworn to Mr. Douglas being of the same form and make of body as his father; he has been known to be the son of Colonel Stewart, by persons who had never seen him before; and is so like his elder brother, the present Sir John Stewart, that except by their age, it would be hard to distinguish the one from the other.”

“If Sir John Stewart, the most artless of mankind, was actor in the enlevement of Mignon and Saury’s children, he did in a few days what the acutest genius could not accomplish for years; he found two children, the one the finished model of himself, and the other the exact picture in miniature of Lady Jane^[347]. It seems nature had implanted in the children what is not in the parents; for it appears in proof that in size, complexion, stature, attitude, colour of the hair, and eyes, nay in every other thing, Mignon and his wife, and Saury and his spouse were, toto coelo, different from and unlike to Sir John Stewart and Lady Jane Douglas.” 2 Collec. Jurid. p. 402.

A painter or a sculptor would be more competent to decide a question of this nature than a physician or surgeon, but in their absence there is none on whose testimony we can more safely rely than on the medical witness, whose habits of observing the formation, changes, and peculiarities of the human body, naturally prepare him for such examination.

It has been supposed that an experienced surgeon or midwife might be able to determine whether a newly born infant was the child of a particular woman, both being submitted to their examination; but this mode of proof, fallacious as it must always be, can be of no possible value, unless the investigation take place within a very few days of the supposed delivery; and even then it goes no further than to determine that the birth and delivery have been nearly cotemporaneous, a result not inconsistent with the supposition that the infant is the child of some other woman, and substituted for one dead, unhealthy, or of the sex incapable of succession.

In ordinary cases this early inspection is not likely to take place, as in the lifetime of both parents the heir presumptive seldom has a summons to view proceedings; but in the case of a pregnant widow, and especially where there has been a question de ventre inspiciendo, it is otherwise, and it then becomes a point of duty in all parties, to obtain the most satisfactory evidence.

A yet more important occasion occurs at the birth of princes; whose entrances and exits are equally subject to question, whenever a disputed succession or an impatient heir give rise to speculation. In England and elsewhere precautions are taken which are as offensive to female delicacy as they are ineffective to the demonstration of truth. The chamber of a pregnant princess, at the moment when quiet is most necessary, is crowded with officers of state and lords of the household; yet we need not remind the reader of all the questions which have, however foolishly, been raised on the supposititious births of princes; for the evidence on the birth of Prince Charles Edward, see 12 Howel. St. Tri. 123. We need only observe that imposition is best practised by skilful jugglers in a crowd, and without disrespect to those learned and reverend personages, we may doubt whether the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Lord High Chancellor, can be as effective at an Accouchement, as the President of the College of Physicians, or the Master of the College of Surgeons.