Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1894 — A Baby’s Influence. [ARTICLE]

A Baby’s Influence.

Who can resist a baby? Perhaps some old bachelor will reply that he can not only resist one, but that he would likewise consider it a good plan to drown them all as soon as they were born, in kitten fashion. Well, the man of this type is left out of the category altogether, and in asking who can resist one of these dear little helpless bits of humanity we mean who, with a heart, can turn away from the dimpled, clinging hnnds, or not be won over by the innocent baby smile. No matter where the baby appears its influence is felt, says the Home Magazine. Let a mother and child enter a car, and five out of every six people will do nothing for the rest of the way but watch the baby, and the old gentleman with glasses, who has been absorbed in the reports of the stock market, will look pleased and smile down on the little mite who has taken such a f&Lcy to his goldbeaded cane, and will even unbend so far as to beam upon the mother and to say in his deep bass voice: “Very fine child, madam,” and if by chance the little creature should smile up into his face or evince any desire to be more friendly, the austerity that frightens his clerks almost out of their wits, and keeps them continually toeing the mark, will vanish entirely, and in its place will come an air of conscious superiority, as though the honor conferred upon him by the tiny morsel of humanity at his elbow had made him a trifle superior to those other of his fellow beings who had not received any such mark of distinguished consideration. Women, old and young unless they are dwarfed in their true nature, always love babies. The maternal instinct is the strongest aud best point in the feminine character, and from the time of doll dressing up to the day when their lives are gladdened by the adveni of a little stranger, they adore the winsome, helpless human beings that are dependent upon them for love and support. The thought of a curly head, a rosy mouth, or a little lisping voice joyously calling “papa” or “mamma,” has kept many a man and woman from despair and the many dangers of life that are worse than death.