The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-07-13
from me Nep YORK. Graphic.

From the Neio York Graphic.
There is no particular season for
babies, / believe; they are another
thing that like the poor in being al
ways with us, but though l don't see
any wayto give this article any special
'timeliness, p" l can give you some in
structive points about babies good for
all the year around. l can tell you in
what they are not like the poor, and
that is in the essential point of pow
erty. There's nothing mean about
the little beggars. The best on earth
is good enough for them. A friend of
mine has just had a baby and the
money that infant has cost herl A
race horse would be a cheap luxury
comparatively. / tell you it is
enough to make the most reckless
pause. | saw a piece the other day
about the layettes, in which it is
said they cost from $50 to $500. That
innocent young writer seemed to
think that vas carrying the thing up
to a rhetorical and affecting climax.
Mercy on us! Maria said she was
doing the thing in the most unpre-
tentious, simple way, getting only
what was necessary, and of as mex
pensive materials as was consistent
with self-respect and ordinary hu-
mainly to a son and heir, and she
has gotten rid of at least $500 in
fitting that young gentleman out for
the earliest stages of his career.
There is nothing so fascinating as
baby clothes and nothing so expen-
sive. It's all very we'll to tell about
simplicity of styles for children.
Every mothers daughter of us knows
that in our clothes there is nothing so
bankruptfng as elegant simplicity,
and it is just the same with children's.
| got started on this question by go
ing with another friend to buy a dress
for a little two-year-old. She went to
a swell children's outfitter on Fifth
avenue. She bought the most charm
ing little slip, a simple as a wild rose;
fine cambria lawn, of course-you
can't put coarse goods on a cherub-
and hand made. It's very bad taste
to have machine sewing on cherubic
attire, and with two rows of Yalen-
ciennes insertion and a little frill of
the same lace around the bottom
IuSGo OSbHC Cil, va GOuIcC VI q OINS
also of the Valenciennes. The price
of that morsel of simplicity and dain-
tiness, some eighteen or twenty inches
long, was just $50.
OF course about half of that was the
extortion of an establishedly fashiona-
BILE place, but at $25, and that would
be a very reasonable price, it throws,
when you remember how many such
slips a baby takes, q lurid light on
dark questions OF the increase of the
population.
1t was then | began to question
Maria about her layette.
There are a good many things you
have to have that are perhaps hardly
| counted in as part of the layette, but
they are part of the baby's possessions,
and have to be paid for, | can tell you
that. You see everything done, for a
baby is so pretty and fascinating, it is
the greatest temptation to extrava-
gance. Not that | was extrava-
gant-but do just come into the
nursery and see his chest of drawers"
The "chest of drawers was what we
would at ~ time have called a bu-
reau, but that is a tabooed word these
days. 1t isn't English enough.
1t was draped in white muslin owe
| pink, and all the drawers were given
UP to the baby's wardrobe. As Maria
| opened one after the other there
| foated out a delicious odor.
"You see" she said, ''you have to
have the drawers all lined with silk
and sacheted.n
"Iwish you'd take a less personal
form in stating your facts; say i did,
inStaad of won don
II think this sachet is nice for a
baby, don't your" she went on un-
| needing. sits orris root and violet
and hyacinth; a baby's things ought
to be most delicate in perfume. You
see, | had the drawers done in pink
because | wanted a boy. Ii you want
a girl, you do them in pale blue
F'Great heavens!p | cried, "has that
| dark mystery of science, the decision
of sex, been decided? DO they come
Just according as you do the draw
ers?o
"WelI, you see, Arthur did" said
| Maria, with that brutal Indifference
| to large issues characteristic of those
who are satisfied themselves. The
drawers were really a pretty sight.
They were lined, both bottom and
sides, with a charming Shade of pink
glace silk, quilted. Maria explained
that she chose glace because it was
more baby-like than the heavier
things. And indeed | had to admit
that this care in getting things with
such a careful eye to this infantine
quality had resulted in giving the
Whole nursery a charming, unique and
suitable prettiness. In the drawers
all the little GARMENTS were tied up
| by the dozen or half-dozen with pink
ribbon. | picked up one of the
| shirts, the first shirts - such a mite
of a thing, made of the finest
silk warp fiannel. / did not know
there was such fine flannel, and over
cast. of course, around the neck. 1t
cost Il. so, and Maria assured me
that there would be a strong proba-
! bility of the Society for the Preven-
ton of Cruelty to Children coming
down on you if you tried to put a
helpless offspring off with anything
cheaper.
The flannel petticoats cost from So
to SIS apiece. They and the pinning
blanket were all, of course, made of
the most systematically fine stuff,
soft as a butter1iy's wing.
"Here is his little christening cap"
said Maria. taking up fondly a mite of
lace, so daintily put together that it
passed ones comprehension how it
was accomplished by human fingers.
II only gave $15 for it, and that was