Sharp County record., 1890-01-09
UNFORTUNATE CHILDREN
A New Breed of Humanity the Product
of Fashionable Society.

New Breed of Humanity the IroducC
of Fashionable Society.
We are witnessing the production OF a
new race of humanity which is at pres
ent in its infancy, and will be best
named as "the Don't Children" The
Don't children are the offspring of the
fashionable women uptown and on Co.
lumbia Heights and the Hill in Brook
lyn. What kind of men and women
they will make time alone can tell, but
the result is well worth waiting for,
and will be very interesting. There are
few, if any, adults now alive who spent
such childhood as these little things are
going through, but as there are now
tens of thousands of such little ones,
they will make some sort of distinct
mark on the future social and business
life of the town.
The Don't children are those little
things we see in front Of the broWn>
stone houses with the nurse girls in mob
caps and starched aprons. These little
children are very peculiarly dressed; al
ways ultra iashionably, If they are
little girls, barely able to walk, they
are dressed in long skirts that reach to
the pavements, and have on either bon
nets like old women or very greatsprawl-
ing hats. If they are boys they are
dressed equally within an inch Of their
lives, and in either case they never
stray five feet from their nurses Their
little faces look prematurely old and
are often deeply lined because it is the
fashion to keep them up with their
mothers assisting at entertaining in the
parlors, eating rich food at the regular
family dinner. and cake and ices at ten
or eleven o'clock at night. They have
their own tastes in wines and cOrdialS
and drink with the grown folks. They
90 to the theaters and discuss the artists
on the stage: indeed, they are all made
M" themselves as Elsie Lcslies or
Fauntleroys, or whatever the child
heroes of the stage may happen to be
called.
They are called Don't children be-
cause the word don't is like an iron
band that cramps their little lives,
When they try do any thing that is
childish, when their spirits etfervesce,
and their infantilc nature asserts itself
in any way don't is the word that
checks them. If they start to run, the
nurse says don't; if they begin to romp,
she says don't; if they leap up and
down with glee, the nurse says don't. If
they chatter at home, as little things
will, the mother says don't; so she does
if their hands are Soiled, if they smear
their little mouths with chocolate or get
down upon all fours with the family kit
ten. Don't, don't, don't is the chorus
of their seniors, and the obstacle to all
their natural incllnations.
They become as unnatural as dwarfS,
as stilted and cramped and abnormal as
the trees the Japanese stunt for centu-
ries or the feet that Chinese women
compress in bandages. Their mothers
rear them much in the same spirit that
they guard their jewels. They are not
to be free moment, or to get out Of
sight or to be left to the expression of
a legitimate desire or trait of childhood.
1t will be interesting to happen up in
the brown-stone district twenty-five
years from now to see what sort of men
and women these Don't children will be-
come,-N, Y. sun.