The Baby Farmers

Starred review from May 12, 2014
As in the very best true crime, criminologist Cossins uses the murders she recounts as a way of exposing an aspect of society that has been hidden. The horrific attitude toward infants in late-19th-century Australia is brought to light through the story of John and Sarah Makin, baby farmers in Sydney (in the Victorian era, children born out of wedlock were often given to professionals, who raised them—at a price). Their story reveals a larger societal problem—infanticide was so rampant at the time that the newspapers actually ran tallies of the numbers of dead babies found in a week. Against this background, Cossins, who was inspired to write the book after portraying Sarah Makin on an episode of the TV docu-drama series Deadly Women, gives a gripping account of the investigation and prosecution of the Makins after 13 corpses of babies were unearthed in 1892 in the backyards of homes where the Makins had lived. The book’s power stems from its devastating details; Cossins establishes a tone so vivid it’s reminiscent of Dickens. Photos.

June 1, 2014
In nineteenth-century Australia, shiploads of convicts, hopefuls, and the poor were offloaded to scramble up what livings they could find. For the women and girls, this often meant prostitution; hence, pregnancies and babies brought not joy but often financial ruin on one side and moral ruination on the other. The horrific practice of baby farming arose to help. Mothers discreetly advertised to pay for someone to adopt their babies. Those who adopted them (and pocketed the cash) often kept the babies quiet with Godfrey's Cordial (primarily opiates) until they starved to death, died of other common ailments, or were otherwise dispatched and quietly buried. Cossins focuses here on baby farmers who were caught and punished, Sarah and John Makin, but her approach to this shameful practice makes reading about it not only bearable but also fascinating. She provides a history of the era, trial transcripts and newspaper excerpts, and many learned musings on the laws at the time and how the Makins' trial was skewed by errors andmostlythe need to punish someone for a practice that was not only common but continued after the trial.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)