MARCH 235 



the child is more or less asphyxiated by want of air. 

 This excuse could be urged for anything, even for giving 

 what, when I was in Canada, I saw advertised every- 

 where as ' Sir op calmant de Madame Winslow.' The 

 wretched stuff acquires a new dignity when translated 

 into French ! Fresh air, night and day, is the great 

 essential for health ; and, pretty as are babies' veils, I think 

 the babies are far better without them. All the same I 

 saw a lovely little baby's hood last year, made in a close- 

 fitting way, like an old-fashioned baby's cap, and over all 

 was thrown a large square of net hemmed and run with 

 three rows of baby satin ribbon. 



The public mind has been a good deal disturbed and 

 exercised by the Bill, passed in '98, enabling people who 

 have ' conscientious objections ' to be absolved from having 

 their children vaccinated. I should like to see all vac- 

 cination voluntary, as it seems to me to be exceedingly 

 likely that the last scientific word on the subject has not 

 been said. But if it is really for the good of the com- 

 munity that vaccination should be universally enforced, 

 then the ' conscientious objector ' is a danger to the whole 

 community, and should not be allowed to have his way. 

 Anybody interested in this subject will find in the 

 twenty-fourth volume of the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' 

 (ninth edition) an Exhaustive article on vaccination, which, 

 the writer says, is ' the result of an independent and 

 laborious research.' To me it was interesting and most 

 instructive. The public now have such glorious chances 

 of learning the truth, instead of living on false tradition ; 

 but how few avail themselves of them ! The statements 

 at the end of the article about the epidemic of smallpox 

 in 1870-71 are most curious, and certainly contradict 

 many of the usual medical assertions. 



To return to the babies. Anxious young mothers with 

 delicate infants are nowadays very apt to get hospital 



