ne in which men of science and
practitioners agree. We have met with none competent to form a judgment
on the matter, who do not strongly condemn the exposure of children's
limbs. If there is one point above others in which "pestilent custom"
should be ignored, it is this.

Lamentable, indeed, is it to see mothers seriously damaging the
constitutions of their children out of compliance with an irrational
fashion. It is bad enough that they should themselves conform to every
folly which our Gallic neighbours please to initiate; but that they
should clothe their children in any mountebank dress which _Le petit
Courrier des Dames_ indicates, regardless of its insufficiency and
unfitness, is monstrous. Discomfort, more or less great, is inflicted;
frequent disorders are entailed; growth is checked or stamina
undermined; premature death not uncommonly caused; and all because it is
thought needful to make frocks of a size and material dictated by French
caprice. Not only is it that for the sake of conformity, mothers thus
punish and injure their little ones by scantiness of covering; but it is
that from an allied motive they impose a style of dress which forbids
healthful activity. To please the eye, colours and fabrics are chosen
totally unfit to bear that rough usage which unrestrained play involves;
and then to prevent damage the unrestrained play is interdicted. "Get up
this moment: you will soil your clean frock," is the mandate issued to
some urchin creeping about on the floor. "Come back: you will dirty your
stockings," calls out the governess to one of her charges, who has left
the footpath to scramble up a bank. Thus is the evil doubled. That they
may come up to their mamma's standard of prettiness, and be admired by
her visitors, children must have habiliments deficient in quantity and
unfit in texture; and that these easily-damaged habiliments may be kept
clean and uninjured, the restless activity so natural and needful for
the young is restrained. The exercise which becomes doubly requisite
when the clothing is insufficient, is cut short, lest it should deface
the clothing. Would that the terrible cruelty of this system could be
seen by those who maintain it! We do not hesitate to say that, through
enfeebled health, defective energies, and consequent non-success in
life, thousands are annually doomed to unhappiness by this unscrupulous
regard for appearances: even when they are not, by early death,
literally sacri