Los Angeles daily herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1884-1890, 1889-09-20
Faelings of the Flock.

Inc ueclblOu OF the Dlr6CuOrS OF the
Mechanics Institute to suffer Baby
Show to be held in the Pavilion is one
which every intelligent male adult should
"study to resist" The modern Baby
Show is fruitful source of mischief
degenerate successor of that ancient dis
play whose benefcent purpose was to
ascertain what ailing or deformed or
merely puny infants might most ad-
vantageously be flung off cliff. The
object of the modern baby show is not
improvement of the race by assisting
nature in wedding OUT" nor is such the
practical result. Prizes, we are told, are
commonly bestowed by committee Of
matrons, and necessarily fall to the fat.
test babe. In the matron's ideal "scale
of being" the pudgiest, the most orbiculal
babe holds the summit place, the first
adiposition, 30 to speak.
This is not as it should be; no true
improvement in the race can be effected
by encouraging our young to bury theil
noses in their cheeks and their knuckles
under mass of tissues everything them
like boxing-glove. The prize winners dc
not become better men and women
than their unsuccessful but more de-
serving competitors while the latter, be.
ginning life in the shadow of great dis.
appointment, retain to the end Of their
days a sharp sense of injustice incompat.
ible with warm and elevated sentiments.
The effect upon the characters of the
beaten mothers is even more deplorable
Every mother of defeated babe is con-
WINGED, and in her own judgment rightly
convinced, that her exhibit is incompsr.
ably superior, physically, intellectually
and morally, to the roly-poly impostors
honored by the committee of matrons
Her wrath at the unjust decision
is deep, constant and lasting; il
embitters her life, sours her tenn
per and "a worse calamity -spoils
ner beauty. As to the fathers, the only
discernible effect upon them of eithei
winning or losing is to make these un-
worthless trifle more ashamed of theil
offspring than they were before. 'The
proud and happy father" has never had
the advantage of existence outside the
female consciousness, but if he really ex.
listed, the Baby Show would be fatal to
both his pride and his happiness.
In enumerating the manifold mischiefs
that fly from that Pandora's-b the
Baby Show, we are perhaps not justified
in mentioning the desolating effect upon
the committee of mstrons whose action
springs the lid. 1t is doubtful if the dis
asters which themselves incur can rightly
be rated as evils in the larger sense q
the word; and, anyhow, the nature o.
them is imperfectly known; for afte,
making their award they commonly
vanish from the busy haunts Of
women. The places which knew them
know them no more forever, and theil
fate is involved in obscurities pervioui
only to conjecture. In view of this re-
grettable but apparently inevitable fact
it is desirable (if the Baby Show canno,
be averted) that the lady judges be Sc
lected early, in order that our citizens
may bestew upon them before they arr
taken from US some suitable testimonial
of public esteem and gratitude, attestint
the popular sense of their ,heroism in &C
cepting the fatal distinction.-[S. F
Examiner.