Year: 1864




THE "DEAR BABIES. ."-Conventionally,
infancy is only another name for innocence.
Practically they are often wide as the poles
asunder Mothers, as matter of course,
will dispute this proposition; yet they know
in the depth Of their affectonate hearts that
it is too true. A baby is a specimen of hu
man nature uncontrolled by principle. 1t is
a being Of fierce instincts, with no morals.
Infant Neros and Caligulas are as plenty as
blackberries, but where will you find your
sucking Howards? Produce your phian-
thropic baby. Show us a san Pile of the
race that will not gouge. Do they not all
seize us by the hair and whiskers and tug
thereat with exulting warwhOops, as If they
longed to scalp US ? Is it not necessary to
keep their nails short in order to avoid scar
ifcation? Are they not guilty of the most
ferocous assaults upon the commissariat
whence they derive their hourly rations
Has any baby ever been known to exhibit
the slightest emotion of gratitude? &? Do they
not rob US of our sleep, out Of sheer malice,
and compel parents to rise at the dead hour
of night and walk marches against time, un
til daylight? Is it not common thing to
see them become partially apoplectic with
unbrided passion? And then look at their
hypocricy. Do they not indulge i'll blood
curdling shrieks of seeming agony, and
when undressed in consequence of suspicion
of pins do they not kick up their heels
and crow at the thought of having hoaxed
the mothers that bore them. It's all very
we'll to say that


Heaven is near us in our infancy"


but the majority of parents know from bit
ter experience that it is quite the reverse.
1t is the opinion of adult persons who have
studied babies from a philosophical stand
point, that if their capacity for mischief
were equal to their ferocty, they would soon
exterminate the adults Of the human family.


A New STYLE OF RELIGIoN.-Some
one, whose head is usually = Level" has writ
ten his ideas of religion as follows. They
will do to read and think about;


We want religion that goes into the
family and keeps the husband from being
spiteful when the dinner is late; keeps the
wife from being spiteiul when the husband
tracks the newly washed floor with his mud
dy boots, and makes the husband mindful
Of the scraper and the door mat amuses
the children, as well as instructs them wins
as well as governs them; projects the hon
ey moon into the harvest moon, and makes
the happy hours like the eastern fig tree,
bearing in its bosom at once the beauty of
the tender blossom and the glory of the ri
pened fruit. We want religion that not
only bears on the sinfulness of sin, but on
the rascaity of lying and stealing; a reli
gion that banishes all small measures from
the counters, small baskets from the stalls.
pebbles from cotton bags, clay from pepper,
sand from sugar chicory from coffee, beer
root from vinegar, alum from bread, lard
from butter, strychnine from wine, and wa
ter from milk-cans The religion that is to
advance the world will not put all the big
peaches and strawberries on the top, and all
the bad ones on the bottom. tt will not of
fer more baskets Of foreign wine than the
vineyards ever produced bottles. The re-
ligion which is to sanctify the world pays
its debts 1t does not consider forty cents
returned for one hundred given, according to
law. 1t looks upon a man who promises to
pay, and who fails to pay, on demand, with
or without interest, as a liar.


A TRUE friend will always give good ad-
vice, and seldom ever administers it gratuit-
ausly Gratuitous advisers are as frequent