582 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Seit. 15 



doctors did all they could to save the inno- 

 cent child's life, but in vain. How that poor 

 mother must have felt when she realized 

 that her own stupidity and carelessness had 

 robbed her home of its very life. If we have 

 not already laws to protect the children we 

 ought to have some very stringent ones made 

 against the careless and indiscriminate use 

 of poisons. It is a terrible thing to lose a 

 child in this way; but, my dear friends, let 

 us consider in closing that such a death is 

 not to be compared with letting the child 

 grow up to fill a drunkard's grave or to go 

 down into a death of shame. 



Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able 

 to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to 

 destroy both soul and body in hell. 



With the disappearance of the saloons, not 

 only from our own land but from every na- 

 tion in the world, will come better care and 

 protection for all babies and all childhood. 

 Even now we have records of drunken 

 fatherskilling their helpless children. Where 

 the father permits his children to die for 

 waht of food and clothing because of his in- 

 temperate habits, the daily papers have but 

 little or nothing to say about it; but there is 

 no doubt that hundreds of children -are hav- 

 ing nourishing food just now that did not 

 have it and could not get it when saloons 

 cursed our land; and more children are 

 going to day school and Sunday-schools, 

 where the saloon has been voted out, than 

 ever before. 



Now there is another point in regard to the 

 poor little babies that I have not touched on. 

 (Excuse me for using the chickens again as 

 an illustration.) The poultry-journals and 

 the agricultural papers tell us there is a lot 

 of trouble with the young chicks during the 

 first week or ten days, and we do not seem 

 to be able to get hold of the cause. It is not 

 only incubator chicks but those hatched un- 

 der hens. If we can get them through the 

 first ten days our troubles are mostly over. 

 This is not all. Hundreds and thousands and 

 perhaps hundreds of thousands of chicks 

 "go dead in the shell." This means that 

 they mature all right, seem to be perfectly 

 formed, but die just before exclusion. Our 

 experiment stations and the Department of 

 Agriculture suggest that one great cause of 

 these infantile deaths (I am talking about 

 chickens now) is a lack of vigor and vitality; 

 and as a remedy they suggest stronger arid 

 more vigorous parents for the baby chicks. 

 The open-air cure comes in right here. 

 Parents reared on our farms, having the run 

 of the fields, and roosting at night in open- 

 front roosts, or, better still, in trees {chick- 

 ens, mind you), with plenty of nourishing 

 food, will give good healthy eggs and great 

 vitality; and this, they think, is the largest 

 factor in enabling the chicks to burst out of 

 the shell and get a start in life just the way 

 the 13 did I tell you about in another column. 



Let us now apply this same doctrine or 

 philosophy to the babies. The parents 

 should be in the best possible state of health. 

 I say, and our best physicians are saying it 

 with me, that all parents, if possible, should 



sleep outdoors. The mother should have 

 plenty of the most nourishing food, and she 

 should have a sufficient variety of it. She 

 should not be overworked nor worried. 

 Great heavens ! think of obliging a prospec- 

 tive mother to go on scant rations because of 

 a drunken husband ! Then think of her 

 being worried and hurried and overworked 

 at this critical time while the money her 

 companion in life earns is going to the 

 brewer instead of buying food and clothing 

 for the children. God help us to think of 

 the mothers while we redouble our efforts and 

 zeal to stamp out the saloon. I' read some- 

 where that three different industries are in- 

 jured by voting towns and counties dry. 

 First, the saloon-keeper is thrown out of 

 employment; next the undertaker does not 

 have enough to do to pay expenses; and 

 last, but not least, there is a terrible dearth 

 of washerwomen. Women who used to take 

 in washing do not need to do it any more, 

 because the husband brings home his sav- 

 ings. Oh ! these are facts. Go and ask the 

 people in any neighborhood where they used 

 to have saloons and see if I am not right. 



Some periodical said a short time ago that 

 neither the Department of Agriculture nor 

 any other department in the government 

 had turned a bit of attention toward caring 

 for humanity in the same way that they de- 

 voted volumes to the care and well-being of 

 horses, cattle, pigs, and chickens. The hu- 

 man form divine, the babies created by God's 

 own hand, and created in his own image, 

 are not worthy of a single leaflet or bulletin. 

 I hope this is not true. The Chinese have 

 been in the habit of worshiping their an- 

 cestors for ages past. Suppose we of this 

 present century turn about and pay a little 

 more attention in the way of reverence and 

 respect and kindly care for the mothers of the 

 babies; and I hope the fathers of our land, at 

 least, are doing so. 



While I think of it, let me say that one of 

 the brightest and prettiest specimens of baby- 

 hood that I ever saw in all my life is now 

 sleeping out of doors; and the father and 

 mother of this baby have been sleeping out 

 of doors for years past, winter and summer, 

 with but few exceptions, and the whole 

 precious three live less than a thousand miles 

 (?) from my own home. Chickens are all 

 right, and so are horses and cattle, and every 

 thing else on the farm; but, oh dear me! 

 what do they all amount to compared with 

 the human form divine, m embryo? "Ye 

 are of more value than many sparrows " — 

 or many chickens. 



I omitted to mention one feature of the 

 good that comes from having trained nurses 

 visit the homes in the crowded cities. Great 

 numbers of women are coming to our land 

 from foreign countries. Many of them do 

 not speakour language; and Christian women 

 who undertake to do missionary work in 

 these localities have often much trouble in 

 gaining access to the homes of these foreign- 

 ers. They are suspicious of our people and 

 suspicious of our religion. But when the 

 missionary woman is also a trained nurse 



