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In the 1730s, satires and essays and poems and pictures
18世紀30年代 諷刺性文章詩集繪畫
documented a rising wave of revulsion at the world Walpole had brought into being.
記錄了人民對 沃波爾所建立的秩序日益不滿
A sense that beneath all the platitudes about peace and stability lay squalor and corruption.
在和平穩(wěn)定的陳詞濫調(diào)之下 掩藏的盡是墮落與不堪
A walk through London, for example,was a walk over prostrate bodies, big and little.
穿行倫敦大街小巷 遍地都是大大小小的行尸走肉
Infants, whose mothers were unable,or sometimes unwilling, to raise them,were abandoned on the streets.
有的嬰兒因為母親無力撫養(yǎng) 甚至不愿撫養(yǎng) 而被遺棄街頭
But there came a point when someone was tired enough of stepping over half-dead babies found in the gutter to do something about it.
但終于有人 開始同情貧民窟的棄嬰 因而決定改變現(xiàn)狀
That someone was a 53-year-old retired merchant sea captain called Thomas Coram.
他就是五十三歲退休商船船長 托馬斯·考勒姆
Coram had made his fortune in Massachusetts from the Transatlantic timber trade.
考勒姆靠運送木材橫渡大西洋 販賣至馬薩諸塞起家
All he wanted was to have a quiet life in Rotherhithe where he could smell the Thames and the sea.
他只希望享受羅瑟希德的恬靜生活 享受泰晤士及海洋的包圍
But the sight of all those tiny abandoned corpses wouldn't leave him in peace.
但滿目可憐的棄嬰 讓他無法平靜
Worse, he knew that the mortality rate for infants born in the workhouse
更糟糕的是 他了解到出生于濟貧院
and sent out to wet nurse was close to 100%.
以及寄送至奶媽的嬰兒幾乎必死無疑
