“Yes,” I replied, sorrowfully, “it will look pretty, also, laid out in its coffin.”
She was greatly shocked by the remark, which, however, too soon proved true.
“Doctor’s stuff” cannot counteract the fatal results of such ignorance and exposures.
TWO LITTLE SHOES.
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly—never to be worn;
Two little feet laid away in the tomb,
Cold and all lifeless—sadly we mourn.
What trifling things does not a mother keep,
Tokens of love the swelling heart to ease;
Useless little toys—a lock of golden hair;
Something to fondle—to cherish like these
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly, never to be worn!
These little shoes are only left us now;
Gone is our “darling,” ever to remain;
Dear little feet, so plump and all dimpled,
Never will press them—never again!
But heavenly thoughts shall cheer me on my way:
Death is but life, in fairer, sunnier view;
Busy little feet but just run on before;
This is my solace as my tears bedew
Two little shoes laid away in the drawer,
Treasured so fondly, never to be worn.
Impure Literature and Passions.
It is as marvellous as true that some children survive this treatment; besides the stuffing with meat victuals, candies, and cookies, inducing colic and dysentery; then dosing with rhubarb, paregoric, peppermint, and worse. Soothing syrups! Eternal quietuses! Yes, in spite of extremes of heat and cold, stuffing and dosing with crude and poisonous articles, some babies actually reach the next stage—youth!
From chilled blood, indigestion, poisonous air and drugs, repeated attacks of croup, bronchitis, dysentery, etc., the majority who have reached puberty are afflicted by some scrofulous taint, or development, or broken constitutions.
Now, they have appetites and passions to grapple. We have already, in chapter fifth, shown how the school-girl is cheated out of health by the deprivation of her “rights,” among which are air, freedom, and exercise. Here is another evil, which must not be passed over unnoticed. A New York physician, who wields an abler pen than myself, thus expresses my ideas. What he applies to females is not limited by copyright. Males, help yourselves; it belongs to you quite as much as to the beautiful.
“It sickens the heart to contemplate the education of female children in this city.” (And let me add, in this country.) “Should nature even triumph over all the evils above enumerated, no sooner has the poor girl attained the age of puberty, than her mind and nervous system are placed upon the rack of novel-reading and sentimental love stories. There is just enough of truth in some of these mawkish productions to excite the passions and distract the attention of the young girl from the love of nature and its teachings, and all rational ideas of real life, and to cause her to despise the commonplace parents whose every hour may be occupied for her consideration and welfare.”
This writer goes on to condemn those selfish, money-grasping wretches “professors of religion, too,” in our city, who publish this impure and overstrained literature, to the great injury of the morals of the young; adding, “What language can be too strong for such disgusting hypocrisy? We punish a poor wretch for the publication of an obscene book or print, and give honor and preferment to those who instil poison into the minds of our children by a book prepared with devilish ingenuity, and in every possible style of attraction and excitement.