The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1873-05-08
WHICH Is THE WISER?

1HAvE two friends whose names are, or
might be, Smith and Brown. Their habits
of life and the results these habits produce
are worthy of being recorded; they may
serve as mirrors in which some other
folks may see themselves as others see
them. They are both somewhat over
thirty years of age, are both married and
have several children, and are comfortably
we'll off for this worlds goods. Smith is
good, sensible fellow, of more than
average culture, whose opinion or advice
on most matters would as soon ask as
I would that of any man I know. His
wife is right clever, good-natured, hard
working woman-somewhat given to the
fripperics of fashion, but always con-
scientiously doing, as she believes, every
thing she can to promote the well-being
of her husband and family. Neither
Smith, who has been great reader, nor
his wife, who has not, had ever paid the
least attention to hygienic matters.
They both "came up in families where
the largest liberty to do as they pleased
was given to the children, and they
have continued the same course with their
own, trusting in Providence, as they
said, to carry them safely through:
are already in their graves and some one
of the others, or one of the parents, is
needing the doctors care continually
their door being one of the regular stands
at which his patients go to look for his
gig. No one who knows their habits of
life needs to have studied the great prob
lem-ho,o to secure good healtt-any great
length of time, not to know that there are
good reasons, which ought to be patent to
these parents, why sickness and death and
the long train of anxieties and heart
rendings which they bring with them have
invaded their house. Let us see, then, if
zoe can find a sufficient cause. In the Sc
lection of food for their tables, the gratifi-
cation of the appetite is the only point
consulted, and their table is always boun-
tifully supplied with the richest and most
appetizing fOOd-if such rubbish may be
called food. Their children are allowed
to come to the table at which their parents
eat as soon as they sit up alone in chair,
are always asked what they would like to
eat, and their every wish in this particular
gratified. I dined there one day when two
of the children were at the table-one
three and the other five years old, perhaps
and 1 saw that they ate heartily Of roast
pork with plenty of gravy, and finished
with mince pie, and this at six O'Clock in
the afternoon! At another time saw the
mother come in few minutes before din
ner, with a paper of candies, eating of
them herself, and dealing them out liber-
ally to her children!
These instances only serve to show the
ordinary habits of eating in the family,
and are in no wise unusual for them. An
other matter. In the winter these chill
dren are kept housed almost the whole
time-sometimes not going out of the
house from one weeks end to another, for
fear the poor little things would take cold !;
and of course they had colds nearly the
whole time. The natural consequence of
such management of children, as any one
who has paid any attention to the study
of health knows very well, is certain sick
ness and probable early death. A
death, which is the result of the ignorance
or Indifference of the parents to hygienic
laws, is but very little short of homicide;
and the time will come, we predict, when
it will be generally so regarded. In
family where such habits Of living pre-
vail, it is no wonder the doctor reaps a
rich harvest; no wonder the husbands
yearly balance-sheet makes so poor a
showing; no wonder that the father and
mother suffer from care and anxiety
their hearts lacerated with grief; and no
wonder that they are always bewail-
ing their misfortunes, and that they
experience so much of that
side of life which they call dark. 1t to a
wonder, however, that any clergyman can
be so profoundly ignorant as to SANDER
his Maker by exclaiming, as one did in
the course of his remarks at the funeral of
one of these children, "God has called this
little one away" ached to speak in
meeting and tell the reverend gentleman
that God had done no such thing; that it
was not His will that any child should die
thus early, and that it was only in conse-
quence Of disobeying His laws that death