The Washington herald., 1911-09-08
MOTHERS

sat on a northbound car one day
this week beside young woman who
held a two-month-old baby in her lap.
One arm supported the child's back and
head. With the other hand she held
newspaper open at column after col
umn of the Beattie trial. Through the
window at her back the sun shone with
intense heat straight into the upturned
face of the infant The lids that COW
cred the young eyes were matted and
inhamed, and when they parted and ex-
posed the eyeballs the baby squirmcd
frantically, but Intellectually. The wom-
an was impatient of the interruption to
her absorbed reading of the details OF
a murder, and plugged the child's mouth
with a rubber paciher to prevent his
wailing out his torture l rode beside
this woman twenty minutes, during the
whole of which time she did not SHIFT
the baby's position nor take her eyes
from the newspaper.
During the past three days l have
counted eighteen babies on the streets
and in the parks who were in the care
of ignorant, careless negro girls, bent
upon their own pleasure and comfort
and totally unmindful of the young chill
dren whom they wheeled in carriages or
go-carts. Fourteen of these children
lay in perambulators that stood IN the
sun. The tops of the conveyances were
thrown back. and the poor little eyes
blinked in the sizzling rays. One of
the small nurses of these helpless little
children | spoke to, asking her II she
did not know that it was torture TO
the naked human eye to be turned
toward the sun with no protection for
it other than the eyelid, and told her
that little baby would surely develop
serious defects of sight or some terrible
disease of the eyes when they were
so abused l got an insolent retort for
my trouble. When pushed another
perambulator under the shade Of a tree
in a park yesterday the child who had
the minding of the baby it contained
deliberately pushed the carriage back
into the sun before l was out of sight.
And the women who send their tiny
babies out for hours in such care are
MOTHERS!
At the door of a Seventh street de-
partment store on Wednesday after
noon at $3.50 o'clock stood FIVE go-carts
and carriages. Not one of them was
in the shade, and three out of the FIVE
did not even have tops attached to them
to protect their small burdens from the
scorching sun. Four out of the five
children were crying miserably, while
fies-Eerm-laden flies in hundredA-
swarmed over the red little faces of
the squirming masses of humanity.
A woman came out of the store and
frowned at the sight of her screaming
offspring, but she did not hurry her
step.
Can't you shut up long enough for
a body to get glass of soda?" she de-
manded of the ix-month-Old child as
she pushed the cart impatiently along.
The moving picture houses are many
times half filled with children who sit
wide-eyed, with every muscle taut, and
every nerve a-quiver, while melodrama,
crime, and tragedy are vividly illustrated
before their young eyes and impressed
forever on their sensitive brains. Per
fectly nice" mothers send their little
children or take them to sit by the hour
absorbing distorted ideas and ideals of
life; send them to gather abnormal man.
hood and womanhood while they are
yet children; send them from out of the
fresh, pure air God has given them to
breathe and grow in into the fetid,
sitting atmosphere Of these little, dark
holes in the wall, where all the nerve
racking sensations of life are morbidly
depicted for them
~ lNf
nice" mothers!
Because a four-year-old maiden had
no redress. a woman took strong comb
from her dresser and beat the tender
of a passer-by turned sick with the sound
of the blows and the pitiful pleas of
the baby.
"Oh. mamma, please! Oh, mamma,
please! Oh, mamma, l didn't mean TO
break it" came the sobbing child voice
beseechingly through the open window,
but the woman was very angry, and the
wee maiden was not big enough to strike |
back; so the blows fell from the stiff, |
hard comb on the tender flesh, until a |
wave of nausea swept over the passer-by. |
The Washington home in which this |
dire degradation occurred is in fash |
ionable thoroughfare, and bears all the
earmarks of refinement.
And the woman whose uncontrolled |
temper caused her to beat the helpless
body of a four-year-old baby was the
babys mother.
A woman of whom / know takes three
small children out with her automobil-
ing every pleasant night in the week, be-
cause she has no one with whom to |