The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1875-02-04
He had the keen assistance of Mr.. Evarts
and no end of suggestions from Mr. Shear
, Don't Kiss the Baby.

The promiscuous kissing of children is.
says the Scientific american, pestilent
practice. We use the word advisedly,
and it is mild for the occasion. Murder
Gus would be the proper word, did the
kissers know the miychief they do. Yes.
madam, murderous; and we are speaking
to you. Do you remember calling on
your dear friend Mrs. Brown the other
day, with strip of flannel round your
neck? And when little Flora came dane
ing into the room, didn't you pounce
upon her demonstratively, call her a
precious little pet, and kiss her Then
you serenely proceeded to describe the
dreadful sore throat that kept you from
prayer-meeting the night before. You
had no designs on the dear child's life,
we know; nevertheless you killed her !!
Killed her as surely as if you had fed her
with strychnine or arsenic. Your caresses
were fatal. Two or three days after the
little pet began to complain of sore throat,
too. The symptoms grew alarm
ling, and when the doctor came
the simple word diphtheria suf-
feed to explain them all. To-day little
mound in Greenwood is the sole memento
of your visit. OF course the mother does
not suspect. and would not dare to sus-
pect, you of any instrumentality in her
bereavement. She charges it to mys-
ferrous Providence. The doctor says
nothing to disturb the allusion; that
would be impolitic, if not cruel; but to
an outsider he is free to say that the
child's death was due directly to your
Internal stupidity. Those are precisely
his words; more forcible than elegant, it
is true but who shall say, under the cir.
cums.ances, that they arc not justifiab!e
Remember
Evil is wrought by want of thought
As we'll as by want OF heart.
1t would be hard to tell how much of
the prevalent sickness and mortality from
diptheria is due to such want Of thought.
AS rule, adults have the disease in so
mild form that they mistake it for a
simple cold, and as cold is not contagi-
Gus they think nothing of exposing 9th
ers to their breath, or to
the greater danger of labial
contract. Taking into con-
sideration the well-esta blished fact that
diptheria is usually, if not always com.
municated by the direct transplanting of
the malignant vegetation which causes the
disease, the fact that there can be 10
more certain means of bringing the con-
taglon to its favorite soil than the act of
kissing, and the further fact that the Gus
tom of kissing children on all occasions is
all but universal, it is not surprising that,
when the disease is once imported into a
community, it is very likely to become
epidemic. 1t would be absurd to charge
the spread Of diptheria entirely to the
practice of child kissing. There are other
modes of propagation, though it is hard
to conceive of any more directly suited to
the spread Of the infection or more gen.
eral in its operation. 1t stands to dip
liberia in about the same relation that
promiscuous Misunderstanding formerly did to
the itch. 1t were better to avoid the
practice. The children will not suffer il
they go unkissed; and their friends
ought for their sake to forege the luxury
for season. A single kiss has been
known to infect a family and the most
careful may be in condition to commune
cate the disease without knowing it. Be.
ware then Of playing Judas, and let the
babies alone.