a wooden cradle, shaped like a trough or a French baquet, which is usually suspended by a spiral spring from the roof. The elastic motion can scarcely be of the most delightful kind to baby we should think, for there is nothing to prevent the cradle from spinning or twisting round at its will, and so producing dizziness. In Russia, too, a similar cradle is used—contrived, however, more rudely as to both structure and motion. It is an oblong box or wicker basket, with a cord from each of its four corners converging to the hook or the rafter from which it is hung, and with a looped cord underneath, in which the mother puts her foot to swing her baby. In winter—which in Russia is long and severe—the cradles or, sometimes, the hammocks in which the youngest children sleep are slung round the great stove upon which the parents and other adult members of the family pass the night, wrapped in their sheep-skins.
French baby—Old style.
France is the only other country in which the pillow is a necessary complement of the baby. But the attachment of the two is nowadays characteristically French. It is a compromise between the old and the new, between tradition and fashion, and consequently it is not universal. The French baby (especially on gala days) is laid upon the pillow, and his fine frocks and gay ribbons, instead of enveloping his tender body, are spread upon him as he lies, so that he is no more than a kind of bas-relief. In France, however, it must be noted there came earlier than elsewhere in Europe—(one of the results of the Revolution)—the revolt against mere tradition and usage in the treatment of babies. Among well-to-do and aristocratic French folk, in particular, a change in that regard has long been in progress. The French child used to have always its pillow or cradle; now it begins to lie upon a fresh, wholesome bed, neither of wool nor of feathers, but of hair or straw, or among country or sea-faring folk of sweet dried fern or bracken or pungent-smelling sea-weed; and Government bureaux circulate among the peasants such directions as these:—"Lay the infant to sleep on its right side; avoid putting it to sleep in the lap before putting it in bed." The French baby used to wear a multiplicity of caps—a small close cap of fine linen, over which was a second of light flannel, and over that a third of some light and ornamental stuff; now the caps are being discarded, and baby goes openly and baldly bareheaded. There is, however, one infantile institution to which well-to-do French folk cling obstinately, and that is the foster-mother or wet-nurse. The institution had its origin ages ago, and was popular with other than fine ladies who feared to spoil their shape with nursing. It was under the early Bourbon kings that the practice first became established of sending infants into the country, to some well-known dependant of the house, to be nursed and fed and brought up. That is why one reads so much in
