Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 October 1879 — The American Baby. [ARTICLE]

The American Baby.

Save your pity for the unhappy little traveler, American born and white, who is abandoned to tUe tender mercies of nurses. He will be dressed too tightly, perhaps drugged with soothing syrup (or worse), slapped if he cries aud left alone in the dark. He will ride in the carriage with the sun in his eyes, if it is sunny, and with hands and arms uncovered and half frozen ii cold. Flies will be allowed to tickle his fat little nose and pins to stick in his tender little back. Tne strings of his absurd lace cap will choke him until he is black in the face, and he will nearly break his neck falling over the arm of Bridget when she wants to gossip with a crony. His troublesome clothes will be jerked down and twitched around, and he will be laid down, set up, turned over, and arranged any way most convenient to her.. Above all if he dares open his mouth to complain of any of these tortures, his delicate little body will be trotted on her knees till it will be nothing short of a miracle if his Erecious little llie is not worried out of im.

The calm Oriental baby in his tray or basket; the Chinese baby in his cage; the baby of the Burmah, naked or wrapped in silks, smoking at two and married at ten: the bable of the “cradle" and the Foundling asylum of Paris; the Lima baby in its hammock; and the stolid Indian papoose on its boards—each and every one is happier and better off than our poor little mother-abandoned American baby left to ignorant and careless nurses. The “mother-baby" the happy little traveler who Is not left to the mercies of a nurse,whose throne is his mother’s arms, whose pillow is soft, and whose needs are wisely met, he is happiest of all. Fair, fat and hearty, the sorrows of babyhood come not near him. He Is the one “born with a silver spoon in his mouth." The value of a cow depends much more upon the length of the milking season than upon the quality of the milk given fora few weeks.