are _too tender-hearted_ to inflict this
pain on their children, and who, therefore, leave it to be inflicted by
others. Give me the mother who, while the tears stream down her face,
has the resolution scrupulously to execute, with her own hands, the
doctor's commands. Will a servant, will any hireling, do this? Committed
to such hands, the _least trouble_ will be preferred to the greater: the
thing will, in general, not be half done; and if done, the suffering
from such hands is far greater in the mind of the child than if it came
from the hands of the mother. In this case, above all others, there
ought to be no delegation of the parental office. Here life or limb is
at stake; and the parent, man or woman, who, in any one point, can
neglect his or her duty here, is unworthy of the name of parent. And
here, as in all the other instances, where goodness in the parents
towards the children gives such weight to their advice when the children
grow up, what a motive to filial gratitude! The children who are old
enough to deserve and remember, will witness this proof of love and
self-devotion in their mother. Each of them feels that she has done the
same towards them all; and they love her and admire and revere her
accordingly.

261. This is the place to state my opinions, and the result of my
experience, with regard to that fearful disease the SMALL-POX; a
subject, too, to which I have paid great attention. I was always, from
the very first mention of the thing, opposed to the Cow-Pox scheme. If
efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox, I objected to it merely on the
score of its _beastliness_. There are some things, surely, more hideous
than death, and more resolutely to be avoided; at any rate, more to be
avoided than the mere _risk_ of suffering death. And, amongst other
things, I always reckoned that of a parent causing the blood, and the
diseased blood too, of a beast to be put into the veins of human beings,
and those beings the children of that parent. I, therefore, as will be
seen in the pages of the Register of that day, most strenuously opposed
the giving _of twenty thousand pounds_ to JENNER _out of the taxes_,
paid in great part by the working people, which I deemed and asserted to
be a scandalous waste of the public money.

262. I contended, that this beastly application _could not, in nature,
be efficacious in preventing the Small-Pox_; and that, even if
efficacious for that purpose, _it was wholly unnecessary_