The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-07-16 00:00:00

A BABY SHOW.
(From the Daily New,)

The eight of a tea-garden in the daytime Is, on the whole,
rather depressing to the spirits. The aspect of 11 ighbury
Barn during the aftern .oir of Monday last was, however, lint
then into account by the visitors who came to see the baby
show, so extensively advertised by the proprietor. The
grounds had the usual unkempt, ramshackle. and raffish air
of all such pier's during sunlight, but the business of the
hour was settled meter c ,ver in a large hall dec .rated as if
for a fl Aral exhibition. Featoons of paper If •iwers sere sus-
pended from the roof of a long ro,ni, in which an melte 9,1,1.
was established, and in which the babies competed Ti.e
infanta to each of whom a mother was attached, were
arranged in Mini:MO., and in front of the lone was a bar, to
which was affixed a distinguishing number. At the first blush,
one would Inter that the figures might have been put
on for [run.oe of identificathm in case of accidents, for de-
ch.edly the perd,rmera in the spectacle lime so wonderful a
re=erublance to each other, that in case of a panic it might he
difficult for their Tr 'peaty° owners to distinguish them ; on
closer scrutiny this notion was dissipated. The bill of the
play contained the names of the several actors, in fact the
babes were neatly catalogued in the style of objects of art.
Th-y were remarkably quiet under the circumstance., none
of them discovering traces of stage panic or nervoumesr,
although it was probablY—a d indeed, from tha conditions
of the diversion, certainly—their first appearance in public.
There was the dein' baby with a stare a, silly and I
ironff,-rent as an aristocratic duchePs, the baby a ho
chin ups like a young sparrow, the suckling-thumb batty,
the clutebb g infant whore whole mind Is hest upon
grabhing afid clawing anything or any one within I
reach, the cradle ii,dorlion with an expression of wis-
dom on its countenance which Wollift make the fortune of a
diplomatist. The little creatures responded after the
fa-bloc of their kind to the natural 'nonage in the way of
compliments rendered to them by the spectators. As a rule
every numbered baby retained its own individuality, as if
conscious that it was entered for competition. There were
lady babies and gentleman babies, lodged indiscriminately
side by side, hut they looked straight before them when they
looked stall; and even the twine, George and El's itioth,
ag d d-mr months, and weighing 18 and 19 lbs., seemed as
estrai gad and pre,ocenpied as if they hail never met
before. The fiiendly contest was conducted with tue
utapost reserve, inasmuch as a trial of hugs between the
candidates for prizes ni,ght have been expected to arise with.
out a reheareal. There was nothing of the kind, aml yet we
do not think the fact was due to arancia means. The babies
were satisfied with the situation, but not abashed or fright-
ened at it. borne of them when stared at by an viii woman
In spoke bonnet, would murmur their disldre at the lilkey. ,
and we noticed mune of them resorting to a b tile (id milk)
for consolation. II nan n ere COI dernendir gly gracions to
those who grinned at them with that familiar tunes iy smirk
which c in only be acquired by him who bath his quiver full
01 these latter gentry there were mat many present. Tne
majority 4,1 the visitors were women.
From this it will be perceived that the babies did not find
the'r own music, and consequently the hand was engaged to
promote the hilarity of the proceedings, and to prevent them
from heconiing monotonour. The band had a poor notion of
the fitness of thing.. The conductor for instance, by way
of an overture might have led off with an arrangement of
Mendelssohna "Cradle bong," of Arthur Sullivan's " Rest
thee, my baby "—in fact he would be embarrassed with the
musical resources at his hand which would have Riven an
operatic effect to his programme; bat instead of this he

played as much beside the occasion as it was possible for
him to do- Wallies and Canaan quadrilles sounded.qualut ,
and lather eccentric in oonnect ion with the ranges of placid
infanta and their maternal guardians, who looked anything
but fit for pranking it according to Offenbach.
The exhibition partook of an international character, inas-
much RA teibies of collide were not excluded. There wag one
amazingly woolley little nigger shining as if he bad been Day.
end- if embed for the event, with the duskiest of limbs and
eyes burning with an almost tropical fire. We believe this
African was a native of St. Pancras. Another promising in-
fant was of a net cot! ee consp'ezion, and wore a pair of
lustrous opal Jewels in his bead to which the celebrated or-
nament of Shakespeare's toad would appear dim It would
I be a task for which we have neither the requisite taste, ex-
perience, nor courage to make conioarisons between the
individual competitors. Jt.dging from a few things
that we saw we should he inclined to think that t'Le
committee of the baby chow will have a hard time of it when
the period clines for announcing the verdicts. An indignant
mother held out what is sometimes termed V'thumping child."
and explained with much eloquence that neither its age nor
Its welrht bad been printed in the list. " Aud it are a good
tete for five months, isn't It now," remarked this wronged
and delicate female, who really was hurt at the neglect to
which her contributions was subjected. There were extra-
ordinary varieties if beads in the show—heads round as
Oranges, heads yrtaked like Sir Walter Scott's, heals massive
and well net as those of mature engineers or lawyers. The
lady-babies were perhaps brighter and more demonstrative
than the gentlemen, and few of them indulged in siestas or in
luncheons.

The niothers appeared to enjoy the whole affair without
the least apparent recognition of a disagreeable feature In
it. they were the wives of artisans, and we on tandem! that
they came from aa fr aft as D-ptford and Greenwich to
assist at the sic gular pts. As a rule they were plal,featured
but kindly-seeming women, with the marks of a sad
ignorance and lack id refinement or thrught on their
faces To say that they appeared fond of the children
aid thoroughly careful of them would not be to pay
them a compliment consideriug the nature of the fes-
tival. The attair is altogether a, agreeably managed as a
disagreeable spectacle could be. The babies at least did all
they could to render it iotereattug Everyone of them
deserved a prise for the sail admintri mode in which they
regarded the ornamental Incidents of the 'peculation, in.
chiding imatchea from the Grande Ducheole. The fathers
were conspicuous by their absence, or, at any rate dial not
arrive in character. A goodly share of the spectators might
have been composed of ladies of the Gamp persuasion. They
came on the same impulse that drives an actor on his holi-
day into a theatre for amusement

Perhaps after all there are worse uses to which a baby can
be out than to make a show of it in the Ilighbury fashion,
but it Is not pleasant to see the women indiffen at to the f act
that they are placing them,elves in an unworthy position in
aiding such • performance. If there was more time in
Deptford for the graces of home life to be developed, we
suspect the baby stow would not receive much encourage-
ment from that quarter; and we should make the same re-
mark cf the oilier districts from which the children were
bnoight The attraction of a good dinner, the chance of a
prise, and the vanity of a coarse maternal instinct were
sufficient to overcome In the exhibiting in ,thers the few
qualms of a delic icy which they probably regard rather as a
weakness than as a virtue.