Ladies' Column.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 318, 16 March 1878, Page 3

Ladies' Column.

A meeting of the Radies’ Benevolent Society will be held this (Saturday) afternoon, at Miss Greenwood’s schoolroom, when all ladies wishing to become members are invited to attend. ' The objects of the society are such as to recommend themselves to everyone ; and we have no doubt the ladies of Wellington will gladly join in so good a cause. Such an institution is deserving of all the support and patronage that can be bestowed upon it by the public generally, and if it is provided with adequate means, and well managed in detail, it is calculated to do an immense amount of good in the community, when, as we have had occasion to remark before, there are at all times several isolated cases of distress and suffering, notwithstanding the general prosperity of the district.

The shareholders in the Radies’ Sericultural Company (says the Melbourne Age) deserve credit for the persistency with which they have carried out their enterprise, despite the numerous adverse circumstances with which they have had to contend during the last five years. The land allotted to them on which to grow their mulberry trees was so unsuitable for the purpose that out of -35,000 trees planted only 5000 survived sufficiently to be removed to a locality just over the Murray in New South Wales, possessing the proper soil, light, friable, and abounding with limestone. Thev have also had to contend with the want of laborers skilled in the industry, but they have now secured the services of some natives of Trance who are thoroughly acquainted with the management of a magnanerie, and the cultivation of the mulberry. Their present location is only temporary, however, and the company are anxious to remove to this colony, and thus make their industry Victorian. This they hope to effect shortly, and they are in communication with the Government for that purpose. A quantity of silk grown by the company having been sent Home, they have just received it back, manufactured into a variety of very handsome articles of female and male attire, and these are now on view and for sale at the company’s office, 30 William-street. There are light shawls, fichus, neckerchiefs, hoods for the opera, ties, bags, &c., of elegant design, and

dyed in various brilliant colors. There is also a dress piece manufactured from what until lately used to be considered waste, and thrown away, but by the invention of proper carding machinery is now as valuable a material as any other portion of the silk cocoons. Silk stockings of fine quality are shown, one pair of the orthodox purple hue having been manufactured expressly for the Roman Catholic Bishop of Albury, and another of pure black for the Anglican Bishop of Melbourne. These, if imported in the ordinary manner, would be charged 255. per pair, but the company can afford to sell them for 18s. This is the third consignment of articles made from Victorian-grown silk that the Radies’ Committee have received in return for silk sent Home, and this season they expect to send Home a bale of raw silk that will weigh at least 1001 b.”

WHAT KILLS OUR BABIES. The following article upon the management of infants has been contributed by a Melbourne doctor to the Melbourne Age : Ten times more babies die in this colony than grown-up people, out of an equal number living at the same time. At Home more babies die, the cold and wet weather there killing them faster. ITow is this ? It may be safely said that half these babies should not have died ; that half of them have been killed, not intentionally, but by ignorance, carelessness, and too often mistaken kindness. Very few are starved ; far more die of over-feeding with wrong food ; some of cold, from short-sleeved and low-bodied dresses ; whilst others are killed by bad houses, bad air, and bad drains. Tor instance, in Collingwood, the year before last, sixty-six babies died for every thirty-five that died in Collins-street east. Mr. Hay ter’s returns show that 241 children under five years died in Collingwood, and only thirtyeight in Latrobe ward, and, taking the population into account, and the census proportion of children in each district, we find that almost twice as many die in Collingwood. This shows what good houses, better drainage (Collingwood being too level), and better air will do. But at the best babies die far too numerously, and there is a reason for it. A young baby will double its weight iu a few months ; now that of itself means an enormous amount of hard work done by its stomach, bowels, heart, and lungs. Babies breathe faster than grown-up people, their hearts beat twice as quick, their livers are twice as heavy, and altogether the inside machinery of a baby has, in proportion to its weight, to do twice as much work as ours have. No wonder then its bowels so easily get out of order. They have to work at high pressure, and a little thing will cause an explosion. But God has made babies wonderfully strong ; and with all these difficulties, some babies live in spite of an astonishing amount of wrong-feeding. Were grown-up people to be stuffed with as much rubbish and bad food iu proportion to their age as most babies are, I fear quite as many of them would die.

With a delicate baby, the first point is to keep it warm. Inside every living thing there is a kind of burning going on to keep the body warm. This warmth is carried to every part of the body bj the blood vessels, very much as in some churches, halls, and greenhouses iron pipes full of warm water are used to heat the building. Only our heating pipes are so well distributed that you cannot put the finest needle into the body without piercing several of them, and letting the warm blood escape. Now, if a baby has its arms, shoulders, and legs, bare, it loses a great deal of heat. In warm weather, and if it is healthy, this may not matter much. But if a child is ill or weak, it may need all the food it can take just to keep it alive, and if any food is burned to keep its bare arms and legs warm, it may just waste away and die of a kind of slow starvation. Tor it is part of our food that is burned in us to make the heat, and by keeping a weak baby warm we may bring it up though it may take very little food. Always, then, cover a delicate child’s arms, shoulders and legs as carefully as its body. Put sleeves into its dresses, or cut the feet off woollen stockings and put the leg pieces on their arms. Allow them to wear no lowbodied dresses; keep long woollen stockings on tlieir legs, and either long petticoats or flannel drawers as well. Many a baby with a lowbodied dress takes a sudden croup, and is dead in a few hours. Very often, if half the flannels on a baby’s body were taken off and put on its legs and arms, it would grow up healthy and strong, instead of giving its parents restless nights, and growing up a little misery. I have seen the body far oftener overclothed than underclothed, whilst the arms and legs went naked.

Everybody knows how dangerous it is to be long in a draught of wind in the house, while out of doors the wind never seems to have the same deadly chilling effect. How is this ? One cause of the difference is that in the house that part of the body in the draught is getting rapidly cooled, whereas the rest of«the body is still and warm. Now there is in our bodies a sort of central telegraph office for distributing the supply of heat in the body, and it has nerves, not unlike telegraph wires, coming from all parts to it, warning it of cold or heat. But when we are out of doors we are breathing fresh air, our blood is thus warmed more rapidly, and as it is sent to the colder parts, it easily warms them; but indoors and sitting quietly we breathe very slowly, and the air is never as good as outside. The blood consequently is not -so active nor so warm (for to make heat in the body, as in a fireplace or engine furnace, plenty of air is necessary), and those parts of our body in the draught do not get warmed so quickly as they are cooled. We all know the bad effects of wet and cold feet ; how in men it may cause inflammation of the lungs or rheumatic fever. A draught is just the same cause in a less measure. There is a disturbance in the system which cannot be met, and some of the great internal organs suffer. The lungs, the bowels, the liver, may each or all be congested. Now

it is quite plain that a child with bare arms and legs will be upset by a much feebler draught and in a much shorter time than a well-clothed baby. Draughts we must have—small houses cannot be ventilated without them—but no one should sit in a draught ; that is the height of folly. But we will come back to this subject ; meantime the warning is, clothe every part of a child except its head; the head is wonderfully arranged to stand the cold. In proportion to its size the head receives twice or three times as much blood as any other part of the body. The internal congestion caused by cold is well seen in the purging of young children which so often follows a change of weather from hot to cold, such as we had the beginning of Tebruary. Tor such an illness the common-sense remedy is of course a good sweat, to call back to the skin the blood and heat which has been driven inwards. Give the child a hot bath—as hot as your elbow or cheek can stand—keep it in a quarter-of-an hour, then dry it well, and wrap it in a blanket warmed before the fire. Put it now in bed for some hours to sweat ; a few warm bottles or bricks around it will help. In the morning wash the sweat well off with soap and lukewarm water, and rub it over with warm olive oil.

Babies, when ill, as every mother knows, generally get too hot, or feverish as it is called. Often a chill is the beginning of such a state, and in the effort to restore warmth the heating nervous centre before spoken of cannot in its weakened state control its distribution, and excess of heat follows. Mischief we know creates mischief, and such great heat stimulates to greater heat. If the child is weak, its feet may even be icy cold when its body and head are burning hot. In all such cases a doctor should be seen as soon as possible ; but meanwhile the heat must be kept down. It is much easier checked the first day than if allowed to continue two days. And remember also that this feverishness may often go off in the morning only to return again worse than ever in the afternoon or evening. The latter part of the day, therefore, should bo the time of most care and effort to keep down the heat. Nothing is so simple, safe, and certain to meet and check these heats as bathing the child with lukewarm water. In summer cold water is quite warm enough. Bathe the child often if he is very hot. Every half-hour is not too often. If the baby is weak, and the feet are cold, you must first get his feet warm. Put them into hot water (not too hot) for a quarter of an hour, keeping his head wet all the while if it is hot or if the baby is convulsed. Then dry the legs, wrap them up in flannel warmed before the fire, and lay the baby in bed. If his body is still hot, sponge the front all over with lukewarm water, then dry it, and turn him on his face, so as to sponge his back also. Repeat this often if the heat continues; no cooling medicine can cool like cold water to the skin; and besides cooling the child it soothes him, and is so pleasant that children often ask for it to be repeated.

If only the head is hot keep warm the rest of the body, and especially the feet. Then wet the head well, and lay over it a piece of thin, wet calico, or tie on a thin cotton cap well wet with water. Do not use a thick cap, or more than one fold of wet calico, for thick cloths warm quicker, and often heat the head. Try this on your own. hand; a single piece of wet cloth cools the skin below by the evaporation of the water, while from a thick piece, the water next the skin cannot evaporate, and so it gets warm. Keep the thin cloth constantly wet as long as it heats. When it ceases to heat, and the heat gets cold, dry it, and bind it up in a handkerchief. At night, if a child is hot and restless, besides bathing it, fasten all around its body a handkerchief wrung out of water and folded like a binder; and to make it safe, in case the baby should kickoff the bedclothes and expose the damp parts to a chill, fasten over the wet handkerchief a flannel binder. This simple application will often greatly calm a restless baby, and give it sound sleep. The handkerchief may be wetted again every two hours if the child is hot or restless.

RECIPES. Chicken Sandwiches. —Boil a chicken thoroughly tender, remove the meat from the bones and skin, and pound it in a mortar with a quarter of a pound of boiled ham and two ounces of butter, season with pepper—salt, if required—and a little nutmeg. When it is reduced to a pulp rub it through a wire seive and use it as in the foregoing. In the absence of a mortar the meat may be chopped fine instead, but in that case it is of no use in attempting to rub it through a sieve, and the butter should not be added till the last thing. Egg Sandwiches. —Boil six eggs ten minutes, lay them in cold water, and remove the shells, then chop them up very fine, and mix with them two ounces of butter, half-a-tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, and a very little cayenne and salt. Spread this mixture rather thickly between two thin slices of broad. Sardine Sandwiches. —Remove the scales and backbone from the required number of sardiues ; chop them off very fine, then mix with them one fourth the quantity of butter, a little cayenne, and the juice of half a lemon. Spread on bread as in the preceding. Cheesecake. —Blanch and pound 4ozs. sweet almonds, and a few bitter ones, with a spoonful of water, 4 ozs. powdered white sugar, a spoonful of thick cream, and the whites of two eggs, well beaten ; mix all as quickly as possible, put in small patty pans lined with good paste, and bake in a pretty warm oven under twenty minutes. Take equal parts or weight of well-beaten eggs and fresh butter, two-thirds weight of sifted sugar, half weight of pounded almonds, with the grated rind of lemon—not the juice ; stir these together over a moderate fire, either ia a pipkin, a veil seasoned to lie freeof new glaze, or in a hew. enamelled saucepan, for nearly three-quarters of au hour, or till it is of the consistency of treacle. Put the mixture into pots, and when cold tie it down with a well-soaked-in-brandy paper. This will keep six months, and can be used as jam.