The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-03-21

A great part of the children that are born now
sdays are not good, average healthy children.
They are children Of deficient brain power. Of
diseased nervous systems: children oegotte, Of
peptc stomachs. The father has put bis sons
brain into his meerschaum and smoked 1t out; the
mother has dribbled and dribbled it away In balls
and operas. Two young people come together.
ment. She cannot live without strong coffee her
hand trembles and abe has Q sinking at her stom-
ach, when she first rises In the morning. u she
has taken Q cup of strong Gomez, when sne II
primed for the day. He cannot study 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 existence to
poor. hapless baby, who is born In state OF such
diseased nervous sensbiity that all the forces OF
nature are o torture to it. The fathers have
eaten sour grapes, and the chidrens teeth are set
on EDGE" What such children cry for 10 neither
cold nor hunger, but irrepressible sgony-some-
times from fear, sometimes because everything in
life is too strong for them, and jars on their weak
ened nerves. just 90 it does those Of an invalid
In low, nervous fever.
Now. the directions about putting = child away
alone to sleep, withou. rocking or soothing. Is q
good one only for robust and healthy children.
For the delicate, nervous kind have spoken of,
II is cruel and it is dangerous. We know one au-
thentic instance OF q mother who was trained to
believe it her duty to put her infant to bed in q
lonely chamber and leave II. Not daring to trust
herself In the ordeal, she put on her bonnet and.
positively forbidding her servants 10 go near the
the chiid was stiII, and mad been so for some time.
She went up to examine. The child had strug-
gled violently. thrown itself over on its face, and
pillow had fallen over 1t, and II was dead from
suffocation.
Nervous children suffer untold agonies from
fear when put to bed alone. No tongue can
tell the horrors of lonely room to such chill
dren. little, delicate boy. whom his parents
xe,e drsns 70 sleep ON ussd to scream sS
and whip him. He mistook the pertnacity for
obetinacy and thought 1t his duty TO conquer the
child's will. One night he said why do you
50 spos you s Ss
fellow, Z" don't mind your whipping me. II you'll
only stay with me-" The fathers eyes were
opened from that moment. he saw that human
being cannot be governed BY dead rules, like q
No, mother; before you make up plan OF
operation for your baby. look at u and see what
II is, and use your own common sense as to what
il needs.
Look at yourself; look at your husband look
at your own physical habits-at his land ask
what your child Is likely to be. ~
The caution of our friend with regard to not
suffering the child to sleep betlcee the parents Ia
important for many reasons. There is scarcely
man that does not use tobacco; AID II aman uses
his person. Now, however he may justify the use
Of II himself, he can hardly think that stale to-
bacco efluvium is healthy agent 70 be carried into
the lungs Of delicate infant. Children OF smok-
ing fathers often have their brains and nervous
systems entirely impregnated with the poison Of
nicotine in the helpless age Of infancy. A couple
came to q country place entirely for the health Of
their only boy. q feeble infant The child was
pale and sIckly. constipated in bowels, and threw
up bis milk constantly. 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 little creature took into his
lungs as much tobacco as If he had smoked q
cigarette. Still more than this--the mother who
was nursing that infant did what was equivalent
to smoking one cigar every evening, abe breathed
her husbands smoke. Now, II your baby smokes
cigars, you will find, by and by, when he comes to
need brains, that this brain power win not be
found. He win be starry. htful, morbid. full OF
nervous kinks and cranks. one Of those wretched
human beings who live q life like that described
by Hawthorne in his story OF "Feathertop," only
capable OF existence and efficiency while he is
smoking. but sinking into dimness and stupidity
when he stops. A
Such are some of the chances Of poor babies
God help the poor lite thingsl They never asked
to be born and their parents, If they will bring
them into existence, owe themN every attention to
make that existence blessing. tfr.ls