[10]. This is by no means inveighing against a thing that does not happen. In many parts of Britain at this day, a roller, eight or ten feet in length, is applied tightly round the child’s body as soon as it is born.
[11]. Stays made of bend-leather are worn by all the women of lower station in many parts of England.
I am sorry to understand, that there are still mothers mad enough to lace their daughters very tight in order to improve their shape. As reasoning would be totally lost upon such people, I shall beg leave just to ask them, Why there are ten deformed women for one man? and likewise to recommend to their perusal a short moral precept, which forbids us to deform the human body.
[12]. Children are always sickly in the fruit season, which may be thus accounted for: Two-thirds of the fruit which comes to market in this country is really unripe; and children not being in a condition to judge for themselves, eat whatever they can lay their hands upon, which often proves little better than a poison to their tender bowels. Servants, and others who have the care of children, should be strictly forbid to give them any fruit without the knowledge of their parents.
[13]. The nurse ought to be careful to keep the child in a proper position; as deformity is often the consequence of inattention to this circumstance. Its situation ought also to be frequently changed. I have known a child’s legs bent all on one side, by the nurse carrying it constantly on one arm.
[14]. If it were made the interest of the poor to keep their children alive, we should lose very few of them. A small premium given annually to each poor family, for every child they have alive at the year’s end, would save more infant lives than if the whole revenue of the crown were expended on hospitals for this purpose. This would make the poor esteem fertility a blessing; whereas many of them think it the greatest curse that can befal them; and in place of wishing their children to live, so far does poverty get the better of natural affection, that they are often very happy when they die.
[15]. It is undoubtedly the duty of parents to instruct their children, at least till they are of an age proper to take some care of themselves. This would tend much to confirm the ties of parental tenderness and filial affection, of the want of which there are at present so many deplorable instances. Though few fathers have time to instruct their children, yet most mothers have; and surely they cannot be better employed.
[16]. I am happy to find that the masters of academies now begin to put in practice this advice. Each of them ought to keep a drill serjeant for teaching the boys the military exercise. This, besides contributing to their health and vigour of body, would have many other happy effects.
[17]. I have been told that in China, where the police is the best in the world, all the children are employed in the easier part of gardening and husbandry; as weeding, gathering stones off the land, and such like.
[18]. It is amazing how children escape suffocation, considering the manner in which they are often rolled up in flannels, &c. I lately attended an infant, whom I found muffled up over head and ears in many folds of flannel, though it was in the middle of June. I begged for a little free air to the poor babe; but though this indulgence was granted during my stay, I found it always on my return in the same situation. Death, as might be expected, soon freed the infant from all its miseries; but it was not in my power to free the minds of its parents from those prejudices which proved fatal to their child.