349 



February 19. 



Neptune came this morning to request that the 

 name of his son, Oscar, might be changed for that 

 of Julius, which (it seems) had been that of his 

 own father. The child, he said, had always been 

 weakly, and he was persuaded, that its ill-health 

 proceeded from his deceased grandfather's being 

 displeased, because it had not been called after 

 him. The other day, too, a woman, who had a 

 child sick in the hospital, begged me to change its 

 name for any other which might please me best : 

 she cared not what; but she was sure that it 

 would never do well, so long as it should be called 

 Lucia. Perhaps this prejudice respecting the 

 power of names produces in some measure their 

 unwillingness to be christened. They find no 

 change produced in them, except the alteration of 

 their name, and hence they conclude that this 

 name contains in it some secret power; while, on the 

 other hand, they conceive that the ghosts of their 

 ancestors cannot fail to be offended at their abandon- 

 ing an appellation, either hereditary in the family, or 

 given by themselves. It is another negro-preju- 

 dice that the eructation of the breath of a sucking 

 child has something in it venomous ; and fre- 

 quently nursing mothers, on showing the doctor a 

 swelled breast, will very gravely and positively 

 attribute it to the infant's having broken wind 

 while hanging at the nipple. 



