INFANCY IN THE CITY. 685 



their susceptible systems, and, as they are shut up in the house, they 

 are much more exposed to it. Especially is this true in the tenement- 

 house, where the surroundings of the city infant are at their worst. 



Lack of pure air, air untainted with human emanations and sewer- 

 gas, is one of the great causes of infant mortality in cities. It deterio- 

 rates the health of the naturally robust ; it robs the delicate of their 

 chances for life ; it sows the seeds of contagious diseases ; it hastens 

 the fatal termination of those who are sick. 



Many mothers, anxious for their children, with mistaken zeal pro- 

 tect them from the fresh air. They are especially afraid of night air, 

 and shut their babies up in rooms which would make a well person 

 giddy and sick to enter in the morning. In the country, houses are 

 built less substantially and in exposed situations, and the fresh, search- 

 ing air will find its way in, in spite of unhygienic resistance. 



The little ones are too often brought up on the hot-house plan. 

 Mothers, however, are awakening to the fact that babies must have 

 their airings, and among the better classes the nurse takes the baby 

 out every day when the weather will permit. One must admire the 

 beautiful infants in perambulators, the chubby little run-abouts that 

 are to be seen in the city parks and squares. Their handsome faces, 

 finely formed figures, and rosy cheeks, go to show that children in the 

 city, when properly cared for, can become the embodiment of health. 

 In the country the children are usually looked after by their mothers, 

 who have an average amount of intelligence. 



Babies who are constantly held and watched and tended do not 

 thrive. They grow fretful, uneasy, and pale, no one knows why. 

 The aristocratic baby is at a disadvantage in this respect, unless money 

 — as it may sometimes — procures an intelligent, faithful nurse, a fos- 

 ter-mother. 



To intrust an infant to some baby-tenders is almost as much an 

 act of abandonment as that of the heathen mother, who throws her 

 babe into the jaws of the crocodile of the sacred river. The children 

 who have grown uj) through a wretched childhood to a crippled and 

 deformed maturity caused by the carelessness of nurses, M'ho have let 

 them fall or otherwise injure themselves, are not a few. Neverthe- 

 less it must be said that when the number of nurse-girls who take 

 care of little ones alien to them is considered, the patient devotion 

 and painstaking fidelity they show to fretful children spoiled by in- 

 dulgent parents are marvelous. 



If the rich children are spoiled by over-attention, this can not be 

 said of the children of the poor. The little waif bom in the tenement- 

 house, if it has no brothers or sisters, is often locked up by its mother 

 and left an hour or two by itself while she goes out to work, to gos- 

 sip, or to shop. If she goes out by the day, an obliging neighbor 

 (and the poor are wonderfully helpful to each other) will let the child 

 come into her apartment, where it can sit on the floor or the dirty bed 



