Year: 1877

BABIES AND THEIR BELoNGINGs.-Hap- pening to visit a lady who was in bliss full possession of her first baby, she begged me to tell her where she could find corset for the infant, or even a pattern to make one. She remembered that her own baby brothers and sisters were enclosed in such an article, but she remembered it's peculiarities of form only in that vague way which ladies who are born to idleness are likely to recollect. "Did you wear corset when you were baby?" we inquired. Ger tainly; don't you see how slight I am ?" We have observed it. Indeed, we have often perplexed our brains about this lady's figure. She was six feet and one inch in height, and as slight and grace full as willow and just about as frail. The corset explained it. Doubtless there was so much material to dispose of somehow, and it was forced to be ob- long, as the corset refused to give it room to spread itself. Now this idea may not be scientific, but facts are facts. My friend, who was very beautiful, lovely in all womanly ways, and as ac- complished and cultivated as the best masters and close, continuous corsets permitted, did not live to see the birth of her second baby. Her chest was too narrow, and she died, as many other people do, speedily and painlessly, of decayed lungs. Could she have found the infants corset pattern, her baby would have followed her very soon. Of course a baby must wear smooth, hemmed flannel bandage above it's abdo- men for a month, but after that we should trust to it's muscles. Dress it in soft white flannel next it's person, keep it in warm, loose clothing, but do not permit the room to be over-heated, or the air to be unchanged less than three times day, and yet never permit it to be exposed to draft. Never take it from the nursery without lifting the window, so that pure oxygen may await it's return. Clothe its feet and legs with warm, long stockings, but do not retain the long dresses an hour after it's feet became active and the child indicates it's desire for exercise. The misshapen legs that are so often seen upon boys, and the ungraceful carriage of many girls and women, may be traced to that vanity of the mothers which kept 8 long, unrumpled white dress upon the baby until it was eight or ten months old. Of course, all the life that an in- fant possesses is manifested by motion and appetite, and one is of as vital con- sequence as the other. Many mothers never permit scream to issue from the baby's mouth, even when, perhaps, the noise only means cry for more air in it's lungs, but they pass more food into it's stomach, to invite collie, which does not, as general thing, refuse the in- vitation. A wise mother knows that a babe cannot generate warmth as rapidly as an older person, and she dresses it accordingly. A tender mother is likely to furnish too much animal warmth, by overmuch carressing, and, if she be not healthy, she is likely to vitiate the atmosphere that it breathes. No one should sleep with babe. It is not wholesome for either party, and the rest of the child is broken by the nervous stir of the mother, or else she remains so quiet that she fails of proper rest, and the nourishment given to the babe is not likely to agree with it's sensitive digestive organs. A baby should al ways sleep in a crib ny it's mothers side.-The Metropolitan.