Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1879 — Don’t Kiss the Babies. [ARTICLE]

Don’t Kiss the Babies.

When any person of either sex, or of any condition, sees a small child walking or running about in charge of a nurse, he (or she. generally she.) counts it his privilege to kiss the child, if he happens to be pleased with its appearance. Even if he is not pleased, he feels well-nigh obliged, should he be polite, to caress'the ‘ * dear little thing,” because he conceives it to be a sort of duty which cotemporaries owe to the rising generation. It is singular how this custom of greeting small children, under all circumstances, should have grown up. Entire strangers -to the families, not less than its friendfl, seem to think this kissing imperative. A good-lookiiig, nicely-dressed child cannot be seen in a hotel, on the promenade, or in any of the parks, without incurring the habitual embrace from a number of men and women of high and low degree. That it is an impertinence, to say the least, cannot be denied; that it is a habit which many parents deplore. and try in vain to correct, is widely knpwn. It is most undesirable, nor is it safe, this wholesale, indiscrimikiosing.,.Jpwgiue JiQy. children themselves must suffer It is one of their wrongs that has not been suffi-

ciently insisted on. It la hot improbable that they have often been made ill by running the gauntlet with Tom. Dick and Harry, or Jane, Mary and Sarah. The custom is mere established here than in any other country, and it is time it should be discontinued. Nobody has any right to kiss a child unless invited to do so by its parents, and this should be understood.— N. Y. Timet.