North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1869-04-28
a Bae heler,s View OF Babies.
(From Packard's Month y for May.)

Women have said that our sex is unen-
durable from the time they leave off kiss
ing us.as babies and begin to kiss us as
men. Those women were certainly half
right. No man of gallantry will consider
Himself aggrieved if he has been neglected
in infancy, provided the osculatory obliga-
ton then due be paid with interest twenty
years afterwards.
Respecting feminine babies, only those
are agreeable who are sixteen and up
wards and they are quite as much babies
then as when the poles of their little lives
are paregoric and teething-rings. The
developed babies surely cry as much as
they did in swaddling clothes; but they
cry gracefully and sentimentally they
make no noise about it, and their audiences
are usually audiences Of one.
What is there, what can there be. ofin-
terest, in baby, properly such? Will
some one tell me? I have been diligently
pondering the question for twenty years,
and to no purpose. I have even gone to
see babies, regardless Of sex and conve-
nience, to discover, if possible, the secret
of their charm. Their beauty and wun>
derfulness were told me beforehand but
when / stood in their crimson presence,
anxious to be delighted, they only sought
to astonish me with such necromantic feats
as swallowing their own ists-feats which
|, with the taint of original sir, regretted
they never quite succeeded in. When l
went very near them, or attempted by
magnetic manipulation. to quiet the roar
of anger and defiance my society caused,
they insisted uron pulling my hair-with
which | never was superfuously blessed
or probing the sockets of my eyes with
their cherubic fingers. To that objected,
as | had but two eyes, and was conse-
quently rebuked by the doting mother,
who charged me with interfering with the
baby's amusement. l am very willing
babies should be wholesomely occupied,
but when their happiness and my vision
are incompatible, am wretch enough to
prefer my vision.
| pity babies from my inmost soul--I
always did but cannot like them-for
they are not likeable. They must suffer,
poor little creatures; if they did not they
would not keep up such an internal noise.
1t is an axiom in philosophy that there is
no effect without sufficient cause and
accepting this, where there is such per-
petual outcry, there must be correspon-
dent pain.
JUSTICE TO BABIES.
Babies are not to blame for being dis.
agreeable; they can't help it. They want
to be let alone and kept out of sight, if
they are well bred but their foolish pa
rents won't let them have their way, unless
the word is differently spelled. The un-
fortunate babies must be taken into the
light, and looked at, and criticised, and
poked in the ribs, and asked to laugh
little. The idea of laughing under such
circum> tances? Crying is much more
natural, and they cry. of course. Who
wouldn't? To put sensible and sensitive
baby on exhibition, and insist on it playing
a comedy part with dozen pins in its
flesh, and several doses of medicine inter-
nally, revealing the ignorance of physi-
clans, is much like insisting that bereaved
son should dance hornpipe at his mo-
theirs funeral.
Nor are babies bound to resemble their
father or mother, or both at time. They
must have a confused notion what their
personal appearance is after being assured
that they are exact counterparts Of their
parents, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grand
mothers, and all their contemporaneous
relatives. The truth is that they don't
look like anything in particular but them
selves. Beauty is impossible to them, and
they know it. Their family pride is revolt
ed at the thought of being compared to
their ancestors who may chance to be
comely. Their intuitive sense of art is
quite sufficient to inform them that seven
to thirty pounds of scarlet avoirdupois,
with imperceptible noses, protuberant eyes,
and entire absence of symmetry, do not
constitute beauty. They are conscious
that they suffer by comparison with other
little animals, even with geese and pigs,
SO far as aesthetics 60, and, therefore,
beauty is delicate subject they would
prefer not to have discussed. Babies have
no individuality OF appearance whatever,
and discovering likenesses between them
and mature persons is as if we compared
the tenderness of steak with the express
sion of human countenance.
WHERE DO THE '.woNDEkFUL" BABIES co
TO?
: Can any one tell what becomes of the
wonderful children that are momentarily
being born? No woman ever gave birth
to, no man ever begat, commonplace,
every day baby and yet, out of ten thou
sand given persons, not more than one is
in any way remarkable.
Some great revolution must come to
humanity between childhood and maturi-
ty. During that period the rare genius,
the great beauty, the perfect grace, the
personal fascination that belonged to
babyhood are blown to the passing winds.
Let us all, mothers and fathers, no less
than maids and bachelors, poets and phil
osophers, put babies in the crucible OF
truth, and reduce them by the fire of rea-
son to their natural clements. Let us