Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-05-15
PARTISAN CHILDREN.
How Children in France are Dressed
and Cared for

Partisan children, and is almost given
up 10 them at certain hours of the day.
The nursery maids are the most con-
spicuous figures in the show, with their
White caps wreathed with bows of rib
bon ending in two broad streamers
hanging almost to their heels, and s
long round cloak. often an entire cos
tune, of the same color of the cap
ribbons. The children are beautifully
dressed, like so many little princes
and princesses by Vandyke and Velas-
que, or small aristocratS of the latter
times of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir
Thomas Lawrence. There is rs much
regard paid to adapting their dress TO
their age as If they were men and wo-
men. The excess of fancy and finery
is for the youngest; the dress grows
simpler as the child grows older, until
boys about TO escape from knicker-
bockers (Which are worn much later
here than in England, or with us) are
as soberly clad as little sportsmen,
save for their bright stockings and
crayatS, while the costume of young
girls who are not yet young ladies is
pieturesquely severe. The majority of
the children under seven years old
wear white, often in fulfillment of 4
vow to the Virgin on the mothers
part. 1t cannot be convenient TO clothe
suitably sturdy boy, who has cast off
petticoats under this restriction. but
blue, the color dedicated to the Ma
donna, can be used. There is a chill
dren's clothing establishment, called
"A Penfant Voue au bleu ct au blanc"
after the enticing French custom of
giving names to Shops the resort of
Roman Catholic mothers in this diff
Guilty. French children have been re-
preached with a lack of bloom and
spirit, but | suspect that this originated
with those systematic detractors of
French and al other foreign nations,
the Eaglish. After watching the end
less ''march past" of the children on
the Champs EIysees day after day, for
half a year, | am convinced that no
clylllzed country can muster finer
host. Their forms are Us chubby, their
cheeks as rosy, their eyes rs bright,
their teeth rs pearly, their locks as
thick and glossy, as those of any chill
dren L have ever seen; in this last
respect they excel their little island
neighbors. The calves of their legs
may not always be so robust as the lit.
tie Britons', but they frisk and caper
upon them to such a degree that they
must wear off the superfluous flesh
Their spirits are inexhaustible; they
seem filled with quicksilver to the tips
Of their fingers and toes. They never
look tired, or cross, or dirty; never
quaErelsome, never naughty. They
are captivating little creatures. neither
shy nor bold, caressing and viyacious,
restrained in their rOmps only by ODE
dience and precocious politeness, the
only precocity / can detect in them.
They are playful and gesticulating;
their play is like a perpetual liliputian
or pantomime ballet.
Besides these well dressed and tend
ed little mOrtals there are the children
of the middle and poorer classes, of
whom an irruption occurs every day
before noon. The sidewalk is suddenly
invaded by scores of urchins between
eight and twelve years old, fresh, clean
and tidy, most of them wearing black
alpaca blouses, with broad white linen
collars and leather belts, which give
them q clerical aspect, and carrying
their books, not in satchels, but in
black portfolios called SerUietteS, such
as lawyers use for their papers. More
than half these children have no head
covering French custom not con-
fined to children nor to the male sex;
economical in way, of course, but
which must surely cost most people
dear, at some time or other, in earache,
toothache, and neuralgia of the head
with its myriad tortures. The little
fellows are not troubled by them yet,
and come bounding and babbling along
the streets, hand in hand, or with arms
thrown round each others shoulders;
for French children are demonstrative,
and not self-conscious. They are very
kind to their juniors. [ never saw the
hapless and hated "tag-tail," painting
and numbering after his stronger, fleet
er elders, kicked and cuffed out of the
way when they cannot dodge him;
there was always bigger boy to take
the small boy by the hand, and run
with him in the wake of the party. |
saw squabbles occasionally, but seldom
blows; only once or twice real fight.
Their alterations are very dramatic.
L remember two little fellows in blous-
es, in great wrath, to judge by their
gestures. At the climax one of them
raised his hand, but not to strike; he
waved it with ineffable scorn, ejaculat-
ing, 'R-r-republicain!" to which rhe
other retorted, with motion of utter
defiance, ''Aristoc-r-r-rat!" and each
turned on his heel. They are twitted
with this absence of pugnacity by our
little Anglo-Saxon DULLES. who set it
down to want of pluck; but people
who settle the slightest difficulty with
sword or pistol cannot be supposed to
lack personal courage Mere love of
danger, however, has not the same at
traction for French children as for our
own; they are not to be seen in pranks
which make older peoples hearts stand
still, such as hanging to their hands by
the edge of q roof, or trying how near
they can come to being run over in the
street. But besides love of danger,
love of disobedience has great deal to
do with children's enjoyment of peril
Gus sport, and the French child is OBJ
viously more submissive and better
tTaiDoG than ntborc As11.jJ HfJoaof;o