EDITOR’S TABLE. EDITORIAL GRIT-CHAT.
Blessings on children—blessings on the mothers who M JWWJ” Lrrru'. Cnxanasx.—We have often tried to imagine what i have common sense enough not to spoil them before they the world would be without babies. Deplorable reverie! can walk. during which our speculations have been the brownest kind of brown. No little flowers upspringing—no crocuses gol GLUrroar.-—“Do for pity’s sake let the child have all he dening the black and crusted earth—no tender grasses with wants. How can I blame him for indulging in what I love delicious tints of emerald—no delicate vines; but instead a .3 and can‘t possibly do without!” wilderness of great trees and deformed bushes, with scraggy And so little Georgy had another piece of pie, and another foliage and demented trunks, with names cut upon them, on doughnut, another cup of sloppy tea, and another dish of the outside, but hopelessly full of dust and ashes. No grace preserves. § ful little hills or rivulets a spans breadth—no trickling water Who wondered at his distressingly lazy yawns as he turned fall’s murmuring music—no silvery and incessantly busy from the table? Who wondered that he lolled from sofa to little tongues—nothing but the high. heaven-soaring moun sofa, grew cross and troublesome as night came on, and was tains, cracked and seamed, and broken with the convulsions finally carried grumbling and hateful to bed. of past centuries—nothing but vast, earth-swallowing oceans The feeding process is commenced in the morning. “Georgy and tremendous Niagaras. wants pie—go get it out of the pantry. Jenny. cut a slice Oh! dear—a world full of men and women—but no little of fruit cake for the dear child to carry to school. Have you children! Think of it. There wouldn‘t be a bit of the milk had enough, dear? Just a little more coffee—put plenty of of human kindness in this sublunary habitation, and we are milk in, Jenny. Dear little fellow! how he enjoys his food!" constrained to think we should be overwhelmed with a de Yes, and how he lounges over his desk at school! How luge of vinegar. his red eyes. glued with an unmeaning stare to his book, Still, it gives us a sort of topsy-turvy feeling to come upon wink and blink! Hear his heavy sighs, the result of a dis a squad of infantile liibernians. with countenances like ani~ tended stomach. See him forever yawning on the play mated molasses cakes, and giving indisputable evidence of ground, only intermitting to filch—on the sly—a bit- of plum their origin from the dust of the earth. though in their case cake or an apple from his pocket. Your gluttons are always the dust has been pleutifully mixed with water—I say it stingy, mean and contemptible. gives one a topsy-turvy feeling! There we see all the help Parents—do you not know that an improper indulgence lessness of babyhoml. all its trickery, all its bald, know in rich and highly seasoned food has an effect not only upon nothingism, without the blessed influences of soap and water the body, but the imagination, and the whole moral being? -sprawling instead of falling into graceful attitudes—or if To a child, especially to one possessed of a nervous tem falling at all, immersed in gallons of dirty suds—its dimples perament, and fine organization, with a mind so liable to be crusted with filth—its eyes filled with sand—its hands— overwrought as of itself to feed upon life and wear it away, “description can no farther go." gluttony is a formidable enemy. It stimulates the passions That sort of babyhood is very distressing to sentimental and brings them prematurely into action. It weakens the people, and yet there is a kind of pleasure in noting how s power to resist temptation in more ways than one. It ren thoroughly the little monkeys enjoy themselves. No screams f. ders the blood, which should flow steadily onward, like the of “Don‘t touch that!"—“ Don’t do this!"—“Don’t do the ‘v
pure river from its exhaustless fountain, thick and turbid in
other i” No costly Honiton laces, for pulling which many its swollen veins. It makes the drunkard. the debascd and an embryo lover of the fine arts gets a hearty slapping, and ruined dobauchee. More vile animal natures in mature life the heart-ache beside—for slaps don’t always stay on the are caused by this sinful selfishness, fostered by parents, outside, mind you! They penetrate and remain printed on than the world is aware of. More criminals fill the lonely the moral nerves, long after the red impression of the hand cell, and sleep upon the damp flags of prison floors, brought has faded. there directly through the indulgence of the vice of gluttony, Poor little chicks! it requires a gigantic amount of faith than can be estimated. to see school-teachers, and ministers, and senators, and presi 80 please don’t let Georgy eat till his eyes stand out. dents, and all sorts of good things, emanating from those Please don’t send him to school overfed to worry some poor questionable pug-nosed babies, and yet they have a better teacher. who ought to have the patience of four-aud-twenty chance than the silken scions of wealth and leisure, Who 2 Jobs all compressed in one. Don‘t say that you like to eat study the first principles of evil on a refined plan, that makes 3 all you want, and, therefore, Georgy shall do likewise—4w them, many of them, admirably developed villains in time. cause you may like the man who could digest ten-penny And yet, it strikes us that there are very few real, living nails, and children seldom have such a faculty. babies. What with the pinning and the bandaging, the bio—teach Georgy to GXPI‘ClSO self-denial. Let him see mint-teas, the tossing, the irregular feeding, the rocking, the that you value some things more than victuals and drink— bare legs, arms and bosom, the overwrapped spine, and his future welfare—his immortal soul. Don't make him a other known persecutions, the babies don‘t thrive. They walking batch of doughnuts, a holocaust of mince-pies, a are said often to be brought up by hand. We think in some hecatomb of meats and gravies. cases it would be better if they could be brought up by Remember Georgy is among those who sing so sweetly machinery. So much pressing and worrying seldom result sometimes, in the turn out of a healthy, happy, red-checked, energetic “ I want to be an angel." boy, who smashes almost everything he touches; but if I’lv /I’l frJ/IMr/I‘ f/‘mM’l/IN’/I‘M/N f/W.'I
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trained right, smashes to good purpose when his hand ae quircs its man’s strength and cunning. Who adds some thing to the world‘s Wealth and thought and happiness, and makes the mother and the father exult with an honest pride that they have given character, as well as bone and sinew to the being they have trained.
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OUR Comasn EIBEILIBHXBHT.—Thi8 beautiful affair excels even the one in the January number. It consists ofa purse, and a traveling bag, both designed expressly for “ Peterson,” by Mrs. Jane Weaver. Being colored, they can be worked from the pattern.
