Year: 1874




Babies are universally acknowledged
to be perverse and unreasonable crea-
lures. They rarely make their advent in
families where they are eagerly desired
and welcomed, but generally choose to
infiict themselves upon those who don't
want them. This is SO unfair, especially
in these hard times, when everybody
naturally feels that self preservation is
the first law of nature" that we need
not be surprised to learn that the babies
are generally severely punished for their
audacity.


Generous parents. to be sure, often re-
sign themselves at first to the imposition
practiced, and decide that they will make
the best of it, and do all they can for the
baby, but they presently regret this rash
resolve and are forced to succumb and
study some means of self-protection.


AS yet, no better plan has been devised
than to get rid at once of these selfish
little parasites by killing them. But
some people, especially fathers, are so
weak-minded as to object to this, and
there is show of method in their mad
ness, too, for they argue that these very
babies, if allowed to live, would, by and
by, grow into men and women, and carry
on the management of terrestrial affairs
when we are are dead Need we con-
| Germ ourselves about that? The world
was evidently made for our use and pleas
ure, and we cannot believe there will be
much worth living for when we are gone;
at any rate, our own comfort and happl-
ness is as much as we have capacity to
provide for; so let the babies beware, and
come among US at their own peril


For how not to provide for them, is a
subject that we have carefully studied
for many generations, and have at last
reached great perfection in. Absolute
and universal perfection in this art has
not yet been attained because of the stu
pidity of some people who still cling to
what they call their instincts" and in
sist that the laws of nature were meant
to be obeyed.


| Instinct and nature indeed AS if we
had not educated ourselves out of that
folly long since-as if reason and culture
were not the only and sufficient guides
for modern gentlemen and ladies Why,
they will be telling US next that a lady
may marry gentleman for some other
reason than because he can give her a
gorgeous mansion on "the Avenue with
a carriage and horses and a magnificent
wardrobe


We leave all such nonsensical ideas to
common folks-to those who call them
selves men and women You will hear


these people talk about the helpless, in


nocent creature which yesterday was


not and to-day is, and declare that but


for themselves this new human being


would not have been summoned into the


worl d, to endure sorrow and pain perhaps
an hundred fold greater than themselves
have known. They will declare that


they are never able to look upon the
cherub child without rejecting that
: here. perhaps, slumbers the soul of q


plato q Ct Pou1 EloraOoa Niphti gale
and they must be exceedingly careful
to sustain the little one and train II
Alright
You might believe this for few min
utes when you look at a downy, pink
, baby lying asleep but when he wakes
screaming with collie, you find that there
is no poetry nor sublimity about him
/ And if you live in the house with baby
and learn his perverse and demonlat
habits, you soon set him down as q nul


sance Some of them will scream iron
: midnight to daybreak, so that no one IL
the neighborhood can sleep; some o
s them REQUIRE constant care and attention
. to insure any peace in the house; Others
r are sick nearly all the time, and obligC
n their wretched parents to spend an in
5 credible amount of money on nurses ant
n doctors, and the healthy ones are foreve
l. in mischief, and keep you trotting abou
n after them from the time they cal
d creep.


a So we are obliged in self defence t
[, study the best and quickest modes c
o killing them off; and in various ways W
e succeed pretty WE'LL though we hav
,f many difficulties to encounter. Poo
|. folks and disreputable women send thei
h infants to foundling hospitals, where, i
W spite of the absurd attempt to keep thel
n. alive awhile, fully one-balf die off befor