The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-05-20
French Baby's Hard Luck.
Children Of Paris are EARNED Out and Are Piful Class
Neglected by Their Mothers,

her to and from the lectures given by
various professors. guides her in her
smattering studies and ships any friv-
olous tendencies in the bud. A well
cared for French girl never goes even
to church alone, or with a group of
companions her own age. She walks
with down dropped lids like a nun, and
because OF tedious years Of young girl
hood she is submissive and ready to
marry any man her parents select and
hail with entire delight the yoke of
marriage. since for her it means the
open door TO liberty.
Now. is it not perfectly impossible
to hope that this girl, when she mar
ries and stretches her wings, is going
to calmly shut herself UP in the nuF-
Sery with babies and devote herself to
the society of children? Not she, in
deed. When the baby comes she amuses
herself by buying for it and its wet
nurse the most SNOWY clothes and
sends them both cut to the street, or,
if she does not approve of the street,
she viii not hesitate TO put her infant
out 70 nurse in the suburbs of Paris
with a worthy woman, and go to visit
it at stated intervals. Thus, you see,
she is quite foot loose and free to de-
vote all her energies to society, and
while socially I don't doubt that Faris
is the most brilliant city in the world,
it has won its fame for wit and ele-
gance at a terrible price.
Little Grass Orphans.
This is not only the method of the
rich and upper class or a habit in the
fashionable set. A little lower down in
the social scale among the flourishing
dressmakers. milliners, small dealers
in lingerie. jewels. etc, the hard work
ing feminine shop propristUr finds her
self mentally and physically at greater
ease for her work if she gives her baby
out to her nurse, and sO-called French
thrift has been distinct injury to the
growth of the nation. The environs Of
Paris are populated with more or less
capable woman, who support them
selves nicely by mothering these little
grass orphans. They are pitiful col
onv these farmed out babies, and the
middle class woman is so entirely
wrapped I'D in business end so eager
to save that she considers herself bur
dened with a big family if she posses
ses more than two.
Badly Fed Children.
1--WE been driving and walking all
the lower quarters of Paris
in districts similar to those that in
New York, Chicago and London swarm
with fat and thin, clean and dirty,
fighting, playing, eating, towseled
young humanity, and I have missed
the children. There is too much econ
omy in France for that. and besides,
French children of the lower classes
are eternally busy. Really, I've not
seen any superfluous children, but hum
dreds of busy, black-frocked little folk,
who live on amazingly scant and sim
pie food.
However, their diet is no more
and restricted to American
ideas than that Of the children Of the
well to do. The only wonder is how
such sensible people as the French I'M
doubtedly are can expect to raise fine,
sturdy sons and daughters on the
watery soups and masses of bread that
form the chief of every households
diet. Bread and butter and cup OF
chocolate or milk is what the average
child Paris over begins the day on.
Soup, bread, a vegetable and more
bread, with a spoonful of preserve is
the midday meal, and bar of ChOcO-
late and two slices of bread constitutes
a good supper for the middle class
school boy or girl. 1t is the rule in
every tI6nC0 ldIllly IOI q tAitu W We
given no more than it will probably
eat from any dish, and law that the
little one be forced to finish off every
helping to the last cEumb. Boys and
girls in France don't have whimsical
appetites or a preference for one dish
over another, and to my way of think
ing they eat far too much bread and
not enough good, juicy meat, nor do
they get the proper variety in their diet
to build up lusty men and women, pos
sessing fine muscles and steady nerves.
All Paris His Playground.
However, on the other hand, sad as
I fear 1 have made out the case of the
French, he has compensations. The
whole of Paris, for instance, is his play
ground, and such a playground. There
Is no city in the world possessing a
system of boulevards, parks
and gardens, where children enjoy so
many privileges and few restrictions.