Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1886 — Children's Feet and Small Shoes. [ARTICLE]

Children's Feet and Small Shoes.

Too much cannot be said against the cruelty of forcing children’s feet into short and narrow-tded shoes. A man in a large and fashionable shoe store said that lie sometimes used all his strength, that of a developed man, to force large feet into small shoes, for frown folks, but when he was requested y mothers to put shoes too small on children, he objected. Many children, before they are ten years old, have incipient corns, bunions and callouses, caused by the foolish pride or carelessness on the part of the mothers. Many do not know that if a child’s foot is allowed to develop naturally, that when fully developed, it can wear with ease a much smaller shoe than when crowded back and forced out of shape while growing so fast. The foot is one of the parts of the body that completes its growth early. The size of the feet of a f growing boy are sometimes noticeably arge; when the rest of the body lias finished its growth the feet are proportionate. If a growing foot is crowded into short shoes, the toes are pushed back and become thick at the ends. They are pressed up against the top of the shoe and corns are made. They are enlarged at the great and little toe joints, causing bunions, which are more painful than corns. Narrow-toed shoes cause lapping of the toes, callouses, and corns, especially on the side of the large toe and under the widest part of tlie foot; ingrowing toe-nails are also .produced. Corns cannot be cured so long as pressure is on them. This must first be removed. A man who suffered terribly with corns, said he would do anything to cure them. His friend said, “you are going up into the mountains; go barefooted this summer.” He did so, and his feet were entirely cured. Another cut the tops of the shoes away, leaving the soles and the leather back of the toe-joints and toes. —Pauline Adeline Hardy, in Good Housekeeping.