Mariposa Democrat., 1858-01-28
Reverics of an Ex-Bachelor.
BABIES.

"H," of Porter's Spirit, thus delivers him
self: Martin Farquhar Tupper, in his "Pro-
verbal Philosophy" ian imposing citation by.
the-by), says, that "a babe in a house is well.
spring Of pleasure;" a very harmonious line,
acknowledge, but nevertheless untrue. Had
he said his babe, it might have been true; but
babe includes the babe as a race; and deny,
most positively and unqualifedly, that my babe
"is well-spring of pleasure" To be sure,
he's got enough "spring" in him; but then,
again, he's never well, at least so my wife says;
and indeed she accounts for all his little eccen-
tricities by the pathetic appeal of "baby's so
Sick" and so am !. If ever | were sick Of
anything in this world, it's of that confounded
baby Of mine. There he sits, staring at me
now with his vacant eyes, perfect well-spring
of slobber and inarticulate sounds. Put him
in the crib, and he'sperpetually slobbering and
crying and if he falls out of it he only slob-
bers and cries the more. He's never content
ed, either with his lot or his cot.
My only consolation is in his future growth
Notwithstanding he's all groan now, they say,
that when he's grown up he'll be more pacific
in his tendencies, that he won't have so many
colics, and wont have SO many sleepless nights
But in tho interim, yes the interim, while the
bab,'s growing, what am to do? Am to
ba ca, ,,rifced to his necessity Of growth? Is
,horo no bo..-hoase bed where he may be fore
ed into length. in p..sco of cribs, where he
can't be forced into supinencss' If he were
a girl, I'd make him "a Daughter o. the heg-
ment," but being boy, that Of course, is ''p-
possible. Every morning that baby wakes Ice
up at four o'clock, by sticking his finger in my
eye. If spank him for it, he cries; but if ]
don't, he sits on my breast, grinning like a
young hyena, shouts papa" and then makes
dive for my nose. After sufficiently recre-
ating himself in this pastime, he generally
winds up by pulling my hair out by the roots,
and--I spank him, for there's limit to human
endurance. His mother, 80 far from being my
ally, smothers him with kisses, and tells me
I'm $50 cruel" When was bachelor,
used to smash the flies that bothered me in the
morning, and this human fly only spank yet
am condemned by it's mother, who hugs the
squallng brat and delivers herself of an diotic
address to our infant the burthen of which is:
Naughty papa. Did 9 naughty papa hip
title babya Naughty papal Sallmamma hip
naughty papa2" with similar interesting inter-
rogatories, in similar dialect A pretty ex-
ample that to set before child Bah, I'm
sick of "e title baby !" One day he falls down
stairs another day he swallows pin; some
times he's got the measles, sometims the scar
let fever, and sometimes the mumps. Atpres-
ent he's in daily expectation of the whooping
cough. What hullaballoo wen have thenl
Not content with whooping all through his
hitherto short career, he intends to introduce
a cough-probably hollow, reverberating
cough. An interrogatory suggests ITSELF
Could ever have been baby? Could ever
have gone through "a course of sprouts f"-
Alasl if SO, my position is doubly affecting,
for I'm going through another course now
Happy, indeed, is the lot of the bachelor whose
second childhood is postponed to a late period
of his existence; whereas the married man
endures second childhood in his prime; and
may all bachelors take warning by this recital
of my sufferings, and take care, in stunning
the Charybdis of single life, not to run upon
the Scylla (silly) alternative Of marriage.