St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1869-04-23
H0lC to Treat Babies.

n great part OF the children that are
born nowadays are e.ot good, average
healthy children. They are children O
deficient brain power, of diseased ner.
vous systems: children beeotten of to-
bacco smoke, late hours, tight lacing
and dyspeptic stomachs. The father has
put his sons brain into his meerschaum
and smoked it out the mother has drib-
bled and dribbled it away in balls and
operas. Two young people come to-
gether, both of them in a state of half
nervous arrangement. She cannot live
without strong coffee her hand trembles
and she has sinking at her stomach,
when she first rises in the morning, till
she has taken cup Of strong coffee,
when she is primed for the day. He
cannot stud y, or read, or perform any
real mental labor, without tobacco Both
are burning life's candle at both ends
both are wakeful and nervous, with weak
muscles and vibrating nerves
Two such persons unite in giving ex-
lstence TO a poor hapless baby, who is
born in a state of such a diseased ner-
vous sensibility that all the forces of ma
ture are torture to it. The fathers
have eaten sour grapes, and the children's
teeth are set on edge" What such chill
drcn cry for is neither cold nor hunger,
but irrepressible nervous agonv-some-
times from fear, sometimes because every
thing IN life is too strong for them, and
jars on their poor weakened nerves, Just
as 1t does on those of an invalid in a low.
nervous fever
Now, the directions about putting
child away alone to sleep, without rock
lng or soothing, is a good one only for
robust and healthy children. For the
delicate, nervous kind | have spoken OF.
1t Is cruel and it is dangerous. We know
one authentic instance of mother who
was trained to believe it her duty to put
her infant to bed in lonely chamber
and leave it. Not daring to trust her
self in the ordeal, she put on her bonnet,
and, positively forbidding the servants to
20 near the child, went out for a walk.
When she returned, the child was still.
and had been SO for some time She
went up TO examine. The child had
struggled violently, thrown itself over OH
its face, and pillow had fallen over ii,
and it was dead from sutfocation.
Nervous children suffer untold agonies
from fear when put to bed alone No
tongue can tell the horrors of lonely
room to such children. A little delicate
boy, whom IN, parents were drilling t.
NJ,
every night, aud his father would come
i'll and whip him. He mistook the per-
tlnaclty Tor obstinacy, and thought it his
duty to conquer the child's will. One
night he said, ''Why do you always
scream 80 when you know YOU shall be
punished = 80 father, father - SAID
the little fellow, Il don't mind your
whipping me, if you'll only stay with
me" That fathers eyes were opened
from that moment. He saw that hu-
man being cannot be governed 10y dead
rules, tike plant or an animal
No, mother; before you make up
plan Of operation for your baby, I,oL ut
Il a2% Sc what 1t Is. and use your own
common sense rs to what it needs.
Look at yourself: look at your hus-
band; look at your own physical habits
at his, and ask what your child is like
" to be.
The caution of our friend with regard
to not suffering the child TO sleep betceel.
the parents is important, for many re;t-
sons. There is scarcely Il man that does
not use tobacco; and ii u man Uses to-
bacco, there is Il constant emanation of
1t from his person. Now, however he .
may justify the use Of it himself, he can
hardly think that stale tobacco etiiuvium
is a healthy agent 10 be carried into the .
lungs of delicate infant Children OF .
smoking fathers often have their brain.
and nervous systems entirely impregnat-
ed with the poison of nicotine i'll the help .
less age of infancy. A couple came TO a .
country place entirely for the health of .
their only boy, a feeble infant. The
child was pale and sickly, constipated in .
bowels, and threw up his milk constant
ly. The parents had but one room, in .
which they lived with him and which .
was every evening blue with tobacco .
smoke. Every evening that helpless lit
tie creature took into his lungs as much .
tobacco as if he had smoked a cigarette .
Still more than this-the mother who .
was nursing that infant did what was
equivalent to smoking one cigar every
evening, she breathed her husbands
smoke. Now, if your baby smokes ci- .
gars, you will find, by and by, when he
comes to need brains, that his BRAIN
power will not be found. He will be .
Starty, tittul, morbid, tull of nervous
kinks and cranks, one of those wretched |
human beings who live life like that
described by Hawthorne in his story of
''Feathcrtop'-on!y capable of existence
and efficiency while he is smoking, but
sinking into dimness and stupidity when
he stops.
Such are some of the chances of poor
babies I. God help the poor little things
They never asked to be born and their
parents, If they ,riU bring them into exis-
tence, owe them every attention to make
that existence a blessing. Beech- F.
En- .St0'ce N '.Ucarth dad Hou.e'
In order to amuse the children on a
Sabbath lady was engaged in reading .
from the Bible the story Of David and
Goiiah, and coming to that passage in
which Goliah so boastingly and defiant
ly dared the young suipllng, little
chan almost in his first frowsprs said |