The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-11-01
he Lassans at Hama

| lTurIS Correspondence New York Tribune.l
NJ. de Lesseps returned in haste
| from London to see how his ninth
child, Paul, was getting through a
typhoid fever. This is the one fair
haired member of the family. He
looks like youthful Hebrew of the
German type and does not resemble
either father or mother. Not one of
the ten has a De Lesseps physiogno-
my. They are all, with the exception
of numbers nine and ten, the pictures
of Nine. de LeSseps. She is Creole
lady. The Mauritius was her birth
place, and her parentage was Anglo
French. Benjamin is the name of the
baby boy, who is just ten days old. He
was exhibited by the proud father to
his visitors on the morning on which
he told me of the negotiations which
he had brought. as he be-
lieyed, to a successful issue
in England. The infant BENJAMIN
was not more clothed than bambino
in Holy Family. He had on little
sleeveless garment of a soft, Woolly
sort of cotton, which did not, when he
wanted to kick, restrain the action of
his neither limbs. NJ. de Lesseps hates
to see a finely dressed child. Nature,
he says, does better for the infant in
temperate and warm climates than
the dress-maker's art can possibly do.
She gives it an envelope of fat tissue
which keeps it warm, and the beauty
Of a fresh skin and graceful move
ments. He never suffered more
clothing on his boys and girls than
what the standard of decency re-
quired. Those little dressed-up crea-
lures with frills, saShes and knitted
legglns, which make them seem first
cousins to bantam fowls, positively
CRATE upon his nerves.
M. de Lesseps asked his visitors to
stay and take pot-luck with him at
dejeuner. His two elder boys did not
join at table the family party, which
included Miss Pryse, a Welsh govern
ness, and her French colleague. whose
name l did not catch. NJ. de Lessons
had on his right hand and his left his
daughters Solange and Consuelo. So
lange is his favorite. Both girls
names were borrowed from romances
of George Sand, and emotional char
acter is more strongly expressed in
their eyes than those of their older
three sisters. Solange, though pretty
big, is always caressing and leaning
her head against her fathers arm.
She follows him about with her ewes,
and, he says, pines when he is long
absent from home. AS she is delicate.
ne is afraid to take her about with
him, but has promised that when next
ne makes an excursion into the desert
OF Tunls, she is to bear him company.
The dejeuner was extremely simple.
There was a dish of spinach and
poached eggs, followed by boiled po-.
tatoes in their skins, which (the pota-
toes, not the skins,) were eaten with
butter and powdered sugar. The plat
de resistance was mutton hash. l
observed that the children who sat
down to the repast were moderate
eaters. Al. de Lesseps seemed glad to
hear me notice their sobriety. Here
are some of the rules by which his
nursery maids aud governesses are
bound:
Little meat; less clothing; limited
exercise; food to be given in the hand
whenever it is asked TOR, but only
twice a day at table. A child who
plays while eating merely eats to ap-
pease hunger, and does not run into
gluttony. A child who is only allowed
to eat at fixed hours and at table
meals is sure to gorge itself and take
more than it requires"
NJ. DeLesseps breaches that the
children of the rich are over-dressed,
over-fed and under-exercised. He
was brought up in many respects
like a young Savage-just as he is
rearing his little folk-and he thinks
that had it not been for his fathers
appreciation of the unadorned beauty
OF infants and dislike of finely-clad
and pampered babyhood, he ON. De-
Lesseps) could hot have preserved
his vitality so far into the old age as
he has done. The bases of a strong
constitution were laid in a-free and
natural childhood. AT the age of
five he was no more afraid to ride n
mettlesome horse than an Arab of the
desert. Before his boys and girls
were old enough to play marbles and
dress dolls he gave them ponies and
took them out to ride in the environs
of Paris.