Birmingham state herald., 1896-10-01
CA@ToRTA.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
They Are Still Retained in Many of the
 Provinces of France.

In France every young mother, to whatever class she belongs may say in speaking of her babys outfit;
 And by the weight of all the skeins
 wrought
 I kept the measure of my loving thought; Among the broken threads serene it ran And, interrupted oft, anew began.
 I know nothing more perfectly French than this little piece of humble and eX- quisite poetry, showing the stitches that keep a dream imprisoned so purely in snowy linen; nothing more motherly than the last wish of the careful embroiderer, who bids bird building it's nest pick up bits fallen from the finished work, and mix them with it's own materials, so as to keep and protect the impatient wing that is growing. That growing wing is threatened with many an embroidered and berbboned bond. both in the present and in the future, yet less hedged in than in the past, since people have begun to bring up their children more according to English notions
 The swaddling clothes are no longer as tight fitting as a sheath; the cap which covered the bald little head and framed it so prettily with it's ruche, has been given up; the lace pillow for the lolling head to rest on has been banished; yet in spite of all this, the infant in the early stages of it's life is sort of bundle, very much like bolster, from which two arms and wrinkled little face protrude The
 
 is very easy to handle; but it has it's critics, who maintain that the natural condition of the spinal column is not a straight and stiff line.
 Paris has made many concessions, and the swaddling is less rigid; but the prov inces have not followed suit, while in the country everywhere newborn infants are tied up as hard and fast as ever In the south of France they go to the lengt, of putting this papoose in the bottom of a basket where 1t is kept in place by strong bands passed ZlgZag from head to foot. This is how we prepare our sons for mak- ing use of their liberty. However, leading strings have been given up; that is one step towards progress Twenty years ago they were still considered Indispensable at least country people thought so- and there was no end to their intricacies.
 It is quite remarkable that swaddling- cases, bands and various other letters are the only essentially French contribu- tions that have ever been made to ba- by's equipment. Although fashions in general have for centuries been promul- gated in France clothing everyone la Franchise, yet the fertile imagination which could do this stopped short at chill dren's clothes. Look at the paintings and engravings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and see the little creatures who, as soon as they gave up their plumed bourrelets and long tulle aprons over a blue or pink dress, against which jewel hung instead of a teething ring, had to wear uncomfortable cos tunes, the miniature reproductions of their parents clothes. Little girls, par ticularly, were put into whaleboned bod ices and sumptuous robes, which neces- sitated lessons in deportmen to be prop erly worn, and consequently the dancing master was one of the first professors employed.
 It needed the revolution of simplicity brought about by the influence of Jean Jacques. Rousseau before children could be comfortably clothed-girls in muslin slips and heelless shoes, boys in short jackets borrowed from English styles. Ever since then we have followed English fashions for our children, and now America lays down the law, with it's blouses; it's quilted, somewhat oldsh winter coats reaching to the ankles; its pretty Puritan caps trimmed with fur, a thousand times preferable to the imA mense carca bonnets copied after Kate Greenaway.
 But am anticipa ting; we are still at the swaddled infants long cloak. In every Catholic family infants are con ,secrated to wear white; that is to say, placed under the protection of the Holy Virgin by VOW which does not permit the child to wear any colors but blue and
 white, those of the patron saint, for fixed period, usually year or two, some times longer in the case of girl. This must be some remnant of chivalrous times. of service professed by a knight for his lady when he wore her colors, for it is not, properly speaking, a religious tradition.-''About French Children" by Tn. Bentzon, in the October Century.