The Russellville Democrat., 1880-06-24


 mother through all time to come. And so, because Eve was an incapable per- son and was not in position to ask ad- vice, the management of babies has been going all wrong eversince Cain was born and the need for managing babies began.
 Any philosopher can perceive that cradle as applied to baby, is mistake. The unnatural motion imparted by this irrational coItrivance cannot but exer- else most malignantinfuence upon the baby's inside; and it is afact that the rockers of the cradle are so arranged as continually to engage the shins of the adult members of the family in an ag- gressive warfare in which there is little honor and much pain. The cradle very clearly may be traced to the ignorance and indolence of Eve. It was impossi- ble, of course, for this trifling woman to hire child's-nurse. The circumstances of the case were such that she was com pelled herself to take care of the baby or else to turn him over to Adam. Prob ably Adam had good deal of this sort of work thrust upon bim--as has been the fate of all easy y-going, shiftless men ever since. But even Adam must now and then have rebelled, and to meet such rebellious emergencies Eve unques- tonably devised the plan of tricing up the little Cain to the flexible branch of a tree, representation, and there let ting him swing about while she satisfied her curiosity in regard to the contents of the Garden of Eden. In certain bar barous tribes this practice actually ob- talns even at the present day; in civi- lzed lands the swaying branch has given place to the swayIng cradle-the expe- rlence of centuries having proved that only remarkably tough variety of baby can stand being slung up under tree in al sorts of weather. So, also, the per nicious custom of lacerating the tender cuticle of babies by unnecessary pins is a survival of the bad habits which ob- tained in Eve's nursery Apart from the fact that Eve did not know how to sew, Gains little shirts and things lad to be got together in a great hurry and the quickest means of making them wearable was to splice the fig leaves into shape with thorns. The custom thus instituted has never been forsaken; the pins which worry the babies of the present day being directly descended from the thorns winch made Gains in- fant life burden to him six thousand years ago. Then there is the matter of pap. Pap would give a grown man dys- pepsia and 1t Is the ruin of more babies than person can conveniently shake stick at. But if Eve had not found pan. or something very like it, all ready made in the inside of cocoanut, does any body suppose that mothers of later age would have condemned the interior of their offspring to association with so execrable compound? Certainly not. Even the absurdity of the "baby talk" still in vogue is a survival of the loose and foolish customs of Eden. When woman who in all ordinary relations of lite exhibits no symptoms of brain soft ening addresses to a lady-a baby still incapable of speaking or of understand ing spoken words-the absolutely idiotic question: "Was un um's own ootsen pootsen" she probably does not reflect that she is using precisely the language to which the lightminded Eve first gave currency: but she is, as any capable phi lologist will tell her.
 Not to pursue further the painful an alogy, the general proposition may be laid down that all the discomforts that baby flesh is heir to may be attributed to the culpable negligence, the addle- pated frivolity of Eve. Had this grace less creature been at all the right sort of woman the world would have had very different and much better start; being what she was, her giddiness, her carelessness in managing her babies, has twisted humanity from the very be- ginning all askew. But let us try to for give Eve for all the mischief that she has wrought. Her position must have been very trying one; and probably she did the best that she could, poor soull